


And I'll Watch

by germanjj



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF, Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Little Women (2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Armie as Oliver, Canonical Character Death, Coming Out, Crossover, First Kiss, First Time, Happy Ending, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Timmy as Laurie, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:55:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 40,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27407668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/germanjj/pseuds/germanjj
Summary: Oliver is the oldest - and only - brother of the March sisters and left the family for Europe as a teenager. Convinced Oliver dislikes him, Laurie is surprised when he meets him and Amy in Paris and is invited to stay with them at Aunt March's house. Soon, he discovers Oliver’s secret, which promises to alter their relationship forever.
Relationships: Oliver (Call Me By Your Name)/ Theodore "Laurie" Laurence (Little Women), Timothée Chalamet/Armie Hammer
Comments: 227
Kudos: 181





	1. And I'll watch you kiss

**Author's Note:**

> This story is based on a crack prompt on [this tumblr post](https://thatajthings.tumblr.com/post/623512850448646144/hey-love-lets-play-a-game-if-you-can-choose-one) \- asking who we would write if we'd combined any of Armie's and Timmy's characters. This is mine. 
> 
> I'm plucking Oliver and throwing him into the Little Women universe. Laurie is just Laurie. But also a little bit Elio. 
> 
> Thank you to my amazing cheerleader Julia, and the fantastic beta [trashfortimmy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashfortimmy/pseuds/trashfortimmy)
> 
> I hope you enjoy!
> 
> All remaining mistakes are my own. I will post one part every Thursday.
> 
> banner by the amazing [iwassoalone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwassoalone/pseuds/iwassoalone%22)

**_1874 - October - New York - Laurie_ **

The smell of bread having been placed atop the breakfast table fresh out of the oven is the first thing Laurie notices when he follows the noise to the front door.

“I got it, Miss Evelyn,” he shouts over to his cook, who is peeking her head out of the kitchen.

“Do we have a guest for breakfast? Shall I add another set?” she asks, her voice hurried and on the verge of panic, not fond of sudden additions to the table.

“I will see once I open the door, Miss Evelyn,” he responds patiently and does just that, his heart leaping when he sees who it is.

“Jo!”

Josephine March swirls around at the sound of her name, no doubt having been lost in thought, staring at someone who’d walked by, committing a peculiar detail to memory she could use for a book later on.

“Teddy!”

She smiles her big, genuine smile and Laurie pulls her into his arms, squeezing tightly, a display that he will hear about later as it is clearly frowned upon in full view of his neighbors, even here in New York. But he doesn’t care much about that chatter and he knows neither does Jo.

“I don’t think I recall you writing me that you were coming,” Laurie scolds her playfully, leading her into the house and signaling Miss Evelyn that indeed, they would have a guest for breakfast.

A second set is hastily placed on the table and Laurie sits down as soon as Jo sits, across from her, smiling to himself as he realizes how much he’d missed her.

“So? What are you doing in New York?” he asks while they’re both eating and his heart swells as he watches her enjoy the food without any restraint or sense for false modesty, his heart suddenly longing for simpler times, when he would sit at the March’s dinner table, surrounded by chatter and love.

“Frederic and I are here on business for the school, well officially he is, but naturally I decided to accompany him, since it’s my school,” she explains, chewing on her eggs.

“Frederic, hm?”

She stops and throws him an angry glare that is only half in jest. “Oh, Teddy, please stop it. I hear enough of that from literally all the women at the school and half the parents. They want to see me married so badly I’m afraid they’ll kidnap me one night and I’ll wake up in front of a priest.”

Laurie chuckles at her exasperation, raising an eyebrow.

“Teddy!”

He shrugs. “I’m just saying, my offer still stands.”

“I will not marry you and make us both miserable.”

“We wouldn’t be miserable. We’d be- friends.”

She hesitates, studying him, and Laurie almost regrets having brought it up.

“Do you really want to marry someone who is only your friend? I never dreamed of getting married but I know you always wanted to.”

Laurie looks down at the table and reaches for his coffee, clearing his throat as he fills up the cup.

“How are your sisters? I’ve heard Amy’s daughter is as feisty as she is,” he asks, changing the topic.

She hesitates but then follows his unspoken request and falls into chatter about her sisters. “Oh she’s a handful, just like her mother. I can’t help but feel that Amy deserves to have her daughter be just like her just so she knows what we all had to go through growing up with her.”

Laurie agrees and asks after Meg and the children, then listens to a long story about their last visit when Daisy had smuggled one of the neighbor’s chickens into her bedroom, insisting on keeping it as a pet.

“It’s good to hear that they’re doing well,” Laurie says, thinking back on their shared childhood, missing them all fiercely now that Jo is here and shares all the stories he can so vividly imagine.

“You should come for a visit more often, Teddy. We all miss you.” She reaches over the table to clasp Laurie’s hand.

They both drop their gaze, having come to that impasse where they so often find themselves nowadays.

Later, they’ve moved to the sitting room, Laurie showing Jo his latest book purchases they both know were really bought so Jo can borrow the books for herself.

He looks at her while she shuffles through the newest additions.

“So what brings you here, my dear Jo? I can tell there’s something.”

She looks up, her face so guilty that Laurie has to laugh.

“What is it, Jo?”

“I need you to accompany me home for Christmas.” She says it as if there is more to it, more than simply asking him to come home, come to a place Laurie hadn’t been to since his grandfather had died. She’s worrying her lips.

“Oh. I- of course. May I ask why that is so important to you?”

“Marmee really wants you to and Meg and Amy are going to come with their families and Oliver will and he’ll bring the children and I thought it would be nice to have the family together and you, my dear Teddy, are part of the family. It’s the first time we’re all going to be together to see Oliver after Catherine left and I want him to feel-.”

“What do you mean, Catherine left?” His words stop Jo’s chatter and echo in the sudden silence. Laurie’s face pales and he turns away from Jo, slowly sinking to the chair behind him.

“Yes, she- you didn’t know?”

He shakes his head, convinced he will lose his last breath of air he still has in his lungs if he tries to speak now.

A frown crosses over Jo’s face, along with something like pity, that Laurie doesn’t see and that Jo hides as quickly as it had come.

“Catherine left him five months ago. Him and the children. She packed her bags and they will have a divorce and she’s now to be remarried to some duke in England.”

There is more silence after that. A long one, as Laurie tries to process the news, and then considers the fact that Jo is here, what she’s asking him to do.

He looks up at her. “Why do you want me to come, Jo?” His tone is different when he asks the question a second time, wavering slightly, wary.

She studies him, seemingly searching for the right words. Then she gets that look on her face, that sudden determination that Laurie never could resist when they were children and that scares him even now. She crouches down in front of him, taking his hands in hers.

“You’re hiding in this house and not doing anything with your life and I love you too much to just sit by and watch. I know you miss them all, Laurie! I know you’ve kept away from Oliver and I know it’s none of my business to meddle with but whatever it is that is broken between you both I know you can fix it. You’re miserable here, Teddy. And Oliver is miserable where he is, too.”

“And you think my being there would change anything?” he asks her, cheeks heating up, embarrassed that he does ask, that he does care about her answer.

Once, when they were still children, there had been secrets between them. But it’s not like that anymore. Sometimes Laurie wonders if he wants his secrets back and not have anyone know about him, not even Jo. Just so no one would look at him and see the heartbreak that still simmers so obviously just under the surface of his skin.

Jo worries her lower lip, gripping onto him tighter as if the only way forward is to grasp at him harder and shake him until he agrees.

“I think you both can fix it and I need you to try because I want you to be happy.”

**_1868 - December - Paris - Laurie_ **

“Are you chasing some young girl across Europe?” Amy asks, eyes almost hopeful. She’s out of breath from running to hug him, her excitement bubbling over in the way Laurie remembers and he realizes how much he’d missed it. Years have gone by, but even on the other side of the ocean Laurie feels right at home, looking at a March sister.

He remembers her question and shakes his head. “No.”

Amy’s face falls. “I- I couldn’t believe Jo turned you down. I’m so sorry.” Her words seem genuine. Laurie is not at all surprised Jo had told her, had probably told all of her siblings, and he smothers the shame threatening to rise inside him.

“Don’t be, Amy. I’m- I’m not.”

For the first time since that fateful day, standing here now, in beautiful Paris and looking at Amy, Laurie feels he means it. There is a deep love for Jo in his heart and he is certain that it will always be there. But now that he’s spoken the words aloud and seen Jo’s reaction, his feelings have, if not changed, but settled, and he thinks that something different might still be waiting for him.

“Amy! Amy March! You come back here right this instance!”

“Oh, Aunt March.” Amy laughs at the sound of her aunt carrying over to them, making the heads of children turn, still looking back as they hang onto the hands of their parents, as they stroll through the park on this sunny day.

Amy reaches for Laurie, holds his hand to pull him with her.

They quickly make their way towards Aunt March waiting in the carriage, wearing an exasperated expression on her face while looking at them both - another thing that Laurie finds he had missed.

Getting closer, Laurie realizes that she’s not alone.

Amy climbs back into the carriage, chatting away when Laurie pulls himself up enough to give Aunt March a kiss on the cheek. She huffs in annoyance, just like he’d expected, but he also knows that quietly, she is pleased about the small sign of affection.

“Laurie Laurence,” the other voice says and Laurie turns towards it, shaking the hand that is offered.

“Oliver. It’s good to see you again.” He’s instantly ashamed by how weak his voice sounds, his delicate hand encased in Oliver’s.

He feels the warm, firm grip and strong hand around his own - Laurie remembers it vividly along with the blank, almost hostile gaze. Oliver’s face still looks almost the same, though. Angular but soft, almost cherub-like, yet harder, more defined. This time, Oliver smiles up at him, as if he’s pleasantly surprised to see him.

Which strikes Laurie as odd, for everyone knows Oliver March despises Laurie Laurence, went out of his way to avoid having anything to do with him, must even despise him more now that Laurie had dared to ask for his sister’s hand in marriage.

“It is good to see you, too,” Oliver responds, still with the air of someone who is above the likes of his younger sister’s friend. But Laurie almost wants to believe him, wants it to be good to be seen by him.

Oliver had always been the only person to dislike him and Laurie had been trying his best to accept it. Yet here he is once again, thrown off balance by this man, and hating himself for seeking his approval.

“Amy told me you’re staying at the Chevantes? Isn’t that awfully wasteful?” Oliver’s voice is playful but his words still cut, like a hot knife through butter, and Laurie slips back to the boy he once was, just like an old jacket that still fits, even though it had been hung up in the closet for years.

Ah, there is Oliver and his vile distaste for him. Laurie’s smile fades.

Amy scolds her brother immediately, slapping his arm, but then Aunt March groans and rolls her eyes.

“I see what you’re doing, Oliver,” she chides in his direction, though not looking at him. Instead, she turns to Laurie.

“Mr Laurence,” she starts, putting on the face of someone who is suffering from the mere words coming out of her mouth. “It is indeed wasteful to spend your grandfather’s money on that awful place. Please make sure to bring your belongings over to my house. God knows I have more rooms than I can fill this season.”

“Oh, yes, Laurie, you must!” Amy exclaims immediately, clapping her hands, and Oliver eyes him patiently.

Laurie is dizzy with the sudden change of pace, had been ready to accept Oliver’s hostility once more and not at all been prepared to deal with his kindness instead. Or the prospect of being invited to live in the same house as him.

“Please, Laurie, we’d like to have you there,” Amy begs.

He is defeated. “Of course, Aunt March, I will arrange for it right away. Thank you for your kindness.”

“That’s settled then.” She signals the driver and the carriage starts to move not a second later, so Laurie climbs off it, finding his footing on the path both literally and figuratively while watching the carriage drive off.

He’d spent the last month completely on his own, his grandfather having left for Germany, and now he was going to live with Amy, Oliver and Aunt March.

“Oh Laurie, Laurie!” Amy shouts as they’re already a few feet away, turning in her seat and holding on to her hat. “You must come with us to the New Year’s Eve party! It’s a ball and everyone will be there, including Fred! Dress for festivities! Top hats and silk!”

“I will!” Laurie promises her, walking backward and looking at them driving away. “I’ll wear my best silk!”

~ooo~

Amy’s excitement is the only thing keeping Laurie from deeply regretting having come.

She looks beautiful in her black dress and with her hair tied up. During their brief trip to the opulent house where the ball is being held, she’d already filled him in about everything he had missed in the last months. About Meg settling in with her husband and little children. About Beth’s worrying health and Jo’s stay in New York. And about the advances, Fred Vaughn is making towards her and her upcoming trip back to the States.

“You’re cutting your trip short?” Laurie had asked her, surprised.

She looked half sad and half relieved at the prospect. “Oliver wants me to go. In her last letters, Marmee is not mentioning anything about Beth’s health anymore and we’re worried that-” She stops, twisting her mouth, taking a deep breath.

“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Laurie says just to say something and because he desperately wants it to be true.

“I’m sure you’re right.” Amy smiles at him and quickly gets over her spell of sadness when the lights and music erupting from the opened front door of their destination hits them as they round the corner.

Once inside, they quickly leave their coats with the doorman and Laurie’s mood sinks as he sees the guests, dressed up in their finest gowns and suits, decked in jewelry and ornaments Laurie isn’t sure whether to admire or laugh at.

He’s ready to go in and search for a drink but he pretends to be calm and in no rush long enough until they’ve greeted Fred Vaughn and Amy is swept up in a dance, leaving him alone among the crowd.

He sees Oliver half an hour later, having arrived separately after telling them he’d be at the library before and come later with his friends.

Not knowing what possesses him, he walks over to the group, halfway relieved when Oliver spots him and his face changes into an almost smile.

“Oliver.” Laurie greets him with a polite nod and then looks at the group of friends that flank him.

“Everyone, this is Laurie, our neighbor and a dear friend to my sisters,” Oliver introduces him. Something in his words stings but he brushes it aside as best he can. “Laurie, this is my friend Sebastian, from Germany, studying law.”

Laurie shakes the hand of a tall, slender man in an impeccable coat and notices the strong handshake.

“And this is Nicholas, from Italy. He’s an idiot, but we love him and he’s probably also the smartest linguist you’ll ever meet.” A smaller, dark-haired man ducks to hide his reddening cheeks and holds out his hand to Laurie, who shakes it, feeling utterly and embarrassingly out of place.

He has no talents to boast about, no studies or business adventures to present himself with.

“So, what do you do?” Sebastian is the first to ask the dreaded question, his accent thick so Laurie doesn’t know if he’s being unkind.

“I uhm,” Laurie starts, but Oliver interrupts him.

“You’re traveling, isn’t that right? Jo wrote to me you just finished school and are now traveling Europe with your grandfather?”

Laurie meets his eyes, trying to determine if Oliver is attempting to come to his aide. “Indeed,” he confirms for the audience of three, who seem to be eagerly awaiting his reply.

“Oh, that’s splendid!” Sebastian exclaims. “You must go see Prague, it’s a marvelous city! And Rome, of course, have you been to Rome?” He slaps a hand on Laurie’s shoulder and Laurie tries his best not to squirm.

“Rome, yes, we’ve been in Rome during late summer,” Laurie explains, hating how his nerves get the better of him, how his voice stutters, all the while feeling Oliver’s eyes on him, watching him. No doubt, ready to leave a chiding comment.

But that comment doesn’t come. Their conversation shifts to a story from Nicholas Laurie can’t quite follow and the three men quickly get bored of him, so Laurie takes his leave quietly and vanishes into the crowd.

He meets some acquaintances by the bar, men and women he doesn’t know or like well enough to call friends, but among whom he doesn’t feel lost. He is invited to his first drink, then pays for their second round, and their third.

~ooo~

A few hours into the night, Laurie feels well and truly sorry for himself. He’s been drinking and indulging in dull conversation with his company which didn’t care for anything more than idle gossip and the newest fabric on the ugliest girl. All pump and bravado and nothing real.

Laurie hates it, hates even more how well he fits in with them and their pull of royalty and money.

Amy has long been escorted home by Fred and Oliver has ignored him all night. He has only seen him in passing, glancing across the room — and Oliver’s glances were like ice, like a wall Laurie couldn’t penetrate.

Laurie is sure Oliver couldn’t feel more disdain for him if he went and got himself caught in the bedroom of the most beloved newlywed.

Laurie just wishes he could remember what he did that made Oliver hate him so much.

He uses a moment in the conversation, one he hadn’t paid attention to for the last ten minutes, and slips away from his tired audience. They barely look up when he crawls off their laps on the chaise they are sitting on, leaning back into each other’s space to whisper about the next scandal. Laurie doesn’t look back, trying halfheartedly to keep some level of composure while he searches for his balance.

He doesn’t want to be here anymore. Wants to crawl into his bed and feel sorry for himself there, away from the eyes of gossip and judgment.

For a moment, he considers just taking the carriage back to Aunt March’s house without letting Oliver know but then he thinks better of it and begins his reluctant search for his housemate.

He doesn’t find him in the main ballroom nor in the cigar room where his friends seem to have found their place for the remainder of the night. Laurie checks three more rooms where the guests seem to mingle without any luck. He’s almost ready to go back to his original idea of leaving on his own, sending back the carriage once he’s there and letting Oliver do his own search through the house for him once he decides to leave.

He’s almost back to the front entrance when he spots the door to the library. It’s slightly ajar, a faint light shining through.

Laurie huffs. Figures that Oliver would steal away from a party and surround himself with books, probably giving a lecture to an impressionable lady or a friend who is riding on his coattails.

He opens the door carefully, mindful of his own clumsy movements, his body not yet rid of the effects of both the wine and the whiskey of which he overindulged. It’s dark in the entrance, the light coming from a place further into the room, around a corner.

He doesn’t hear any voices but that thought is slow in his mind and doesn’t pierce through, so he walks further into the room, finding himself in a maze of bookshelves and armchairs.

He spots another man first. The back of his head, a hand buried in the gentleman’s hair. It doesn’t register what he’s seeing. He doesn’t understand it even when he hears the sounds of moaning and then kissing and then sees another head behind the first man’s and he recognizes Oliver, eyes closed, mouth open. The redness of his lips stands out so sternly and that’s what freezes him to the spot.

Another moan, and he can see it’s coming from Oliver, can see his mouth falling open and then he’s biting his lower lip when the other man sinks to his knees.

Laurie holds his breath and thinks that if he just tries hard enough he can vanish in the darkness he’s still standing in.

There’s no thought in his mind urging him to leave, to look away.

He’s heard of this of course, through whispers and hushed conversations. That there are men who indulged in these kinds of things, who longed for physical intimacy with their own kind. Some even, he had heard, loved other men like they loved women.

Laurie parts his lips, absentmindedly, his eyes glued to the expression on Oliver’s face who still has his eyes closed and both hands in the hair of the man in front of him.

Heat pools in Laurie’s belly, his heart thrumming in his chest.

The man seems to undo Oliver’s pants and in exhilarating fascination, Laurie watches the man’s movements, not being privy to the full view, his imagination filling the gaps.

The sounds coming from Oliver barely make it through the room but it’s all Laurie hears. Every gasp, every hiss, every groan tickling his ear.

Laurie is fairly certain that even if he is spotted now, he wouldn’t be able to move. His own legs weak, his body reacting to what he’s seeing, what he’s hearing.

If he’s spotted now, there will be no mistaking that he saw, nor what effect it’s having on him and suddenly that thought thrills him. Not of just anyone seeing him like this, but of Oliver.

Oliver looking at him and seeing what Oliver’s current position, getting pleasured by another man, is doing to Laurie.

Oliver’s moans grow louder, heavier.

Soon his whole body is moving rhythmically and then shaking, the groan out of his mouth making Laurie gasp.

Oliver opens his eyes, then. Looks through the room and right at Laurie.

His lips slack and his cheeks flush, his eyes dark from where Laurie stands, and their eyes find each other in an instant, holding each other’s gaze for the second it takes for Oliver to register what he sees, for his eyes to go wide and panicked, and then Laurie bolts out of the room.

He’s quick, quicker than he’d thought possible, as if what he’d seen had sobered him up completely. Hiding his arousal as best he can, he gets his coat and finds Aunt March’s carriage.

Breathlessly, he tells the driver to bring him home.


	2. And I'll watch you stumble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to everyone who's giving this weird pairing a chance! very much appreciated! (and yes, I said every Thursday but I'm not doing too well today so why the hell not)

**_1874 - December - Concord, MA - Laurie_ **

“Oh my god, Laurie!” Amy shouts, standing in the front doorway, watching both Jo and Laurie exit the carriage.

The air is crisp and clean when Laurie emerges, like he remembers it being this time of year, when snow was likely any day now. 

Jo stops to remove her bag from the carriage and Laurie beside her does too, opening his arms for Amy not a second later, and catches her in a tight embrace that mirrors so many of their greetings over the years. 

“Oh, Amy, it’s so good to see you,” he tells her, smiling even though his nerves have not calmed. Jo had noticed, had pointed out his fluttering hands an hour away from the house until she finally had put her hand on his and not let go until they’d arrived. 

“I see, dear sister, who you’re really happy to see,” Jo teases, when Amy disentangles herself from Laurie and hugs her sister just as tightly.

“You, Jo, I have seen in the last year.”

Laurie understands the jab is aimed at him and his cheeks color but he says nothing. 

A man appears at the door, holding a toddler, shouting a greeting, and Laurie takes a second to recognize Fred Vaughn, his eyes on the child with beautiful golden locks and a face as round as he remembers Amy’s to be.

“Oh my god, Amy, she’s grown so much already!” Jo exclaims and rushes over, plucking the child from the father and cooing at her curious face.

“She’s beautiful,” Laurie says to Amy and she smiles then, a smile he recognizes as something new on her, personal happiness and parental pride all rolled up into one. 

“She is,” Amy says and then reaches for Laurie’s hand, squeezing it.

“Are you happy?” Laurie asks, an impulse that would be considered rude if it was anyone else, but Amy looks up at him and nods.

“More than I thought possible.” She covers his hand with both of hers. “It is good to see you, Laurie, truly. We’ve all missed you.”

“It is good to see you, too.” He squeezes back and then they both let go when behind Fred, Marmee steps out of the house and greets both Jo and Laurie with the same warming happiness as if Laurie is just one of her children and Laurie instantly swears to himself to visit more frequently.

“Come inside please, you must be hungry from the journey. Hannah has already put food on the table. Come, come in.” They’re ushered inside and soon sit, food steaming and smelling deliciously, everyone gathering around. Looking at them, Laurie sees the joy so evident on their faces, that his nervous fingers settle a little.

They eat and they talk about everything and nothing and soon they’re trading stories from their youth, laughter filling the home. 

Which is why Laurie only absentmindedly registers the front door opening when Marmee jumps up and says “Oh that must be Oliver, he was out with the children.” Laurie freezes, his fork slipping out of his fingers. 

Jo throws him a look, one he can feel more than see, and then she jumps up and squeezes his shoulder, running into the entryway to greet her older brother. 

Then it’s two minutes of hearing Oliver’s voice in the other room, his beating heart trying it’s hardest to drown out that sound and he’s vaguely aware that Amy is still talking to him but he can’t will his ears to listen or his body to react. 

Laurie stands when Oliver enters and the chatter around him dies instantly. 

“Laurie,“ Oliver says, his rich, deep voice filling up the entire room. Laurie looks at him, sees his face, and then as if no time has passed at all, Laurie remembers everything as if it was yesterday. Every word spoken between them, every touch shared. 

It’s been two years since he’d last seen him, their last encounter so brief and meaningless Laurie barely remembers it. But everything before that, every moment, he remembers perfectly. 

“Oliver,” the words somehow leave his mouth, “good to see you again.”

Oliver steps into the room and they both shake hands. Laurie can hear the silence surrounding them, can feel all eyes on them. 

They must see. Laurie is convinced of it. They must see. They must know. 

“What is going on?” Amy whispers to Jo and is hushed instantly but Laurie hears her. 

Another moment passes and Laurie contemplates just running off and leaving, making up an excuse just to be able to escape, when two little children appear behind Oliver, Marmee a steadying presence behind them, both rosy-cheeked with curious eyes, hiding behind their father’s legs and peeking into the room.

“Say hello, Charlotte,” Oliver tells the older of the two, his hand cradling the head of the four-year-old. The girl focuses instantly on Laurie, studying him as if he’s a shiny new thing she doesn’t yet know what to do with. 

Not saying a word, she walks into the room and up to Laurie, raising her little arms as she reaches him.

The room erupts with joyous laughter and Laurie does what he’s asked and picks up the little girl and places her on his lap.

“Hello, my name is Laurie. What is your name?”

She tilts her head. “Charlotte. I am four.”

“Are you now? Already four? And please, would you tell me, what is your brother’s name?”

“Robert.”

“And do you know how old he is?”

She thinks about the question for a moment, then shakes her head. “You’re pretty.”

Laurie feels himself blush and looks up to Oliver, finding his gaze on the two of them, a small smile on his face. Laurie taps Charlotte’s nose. “Thank you. And so are you.”

The chatter picks up again and soon Oliver is sitting opposite of Laurie, his son on his lap, and eating what is left over. 

“How is everything with the school, Jo? You mentioned something about a teacher leaving?” Marmee offers a second round of hot tea, handing Oliver his cup.

Jo groans. “Mister Harris. He and his wife are moving closer to their grandchildren and now I’m short a history and an art teacher. I’ve been telling Oliver that he would make a fine history teacher, I bet he knows even more than old Mister Harris but he won’t listen.”

“Jo, I told you. I-”

Jo waves off her brother. “Yeah, I know. I don’t want to hear it.”

“Children, no fights at the table,” Hannah says before Marmee can and looks at Jo and then at Oliver and Laurie remembers that look fondly, having seen it so much when they were children. 

“Yes, I’m sorry,” Oliver and Jo say in unison. 

Finally, Marmee stops her rummaging in the kitchen and sits down at the table. “I- I do have a proposition for you. And I know Meg has already said yes when I asked so I’m hoping you’ll like the idea too.”

Amy leans over the table. “Give me that roll, Oliver, please? What is your idea, Marmee?” she asks and Oliver holds the basket with the rolls up for her to grab one, his eyes on his mother. 

“I want to start by saying thank you to Laurie for graciously housing my children's families in his house," Marmee starts and Laurie blushes. 

"Of course," he mumbles.

"But," she continues, "the night before Christmas, I would like all my children to spend the night in this house, in their childhood home.”

Amy perks up at that. “You mean without husbands and children?”

“Aren’t _you_ excited?” Jo can’t help but laugh and earns a playful slap against her arm from her sister. 

“Oh, hush, Jo.”

“Yes, if it’s okay for you, Amy and Fred, the children can all stay at the Laurence house and Fred and John will watch them. John already has agreed.”

“Yes! And Rosy will be there too! I love that idea.”

Laurie leans to Jo, whispering: “Who’s Rosy?” Charlotte has fallen asleep on his lap and he carefully holds her against him, so as not to wake her.

“She’s helping Amy with the house and her daughter, lovely lady,” Jo whispers back, not taking her eyes off her siblings.

Oliver looks skeptical. “I don’t know. The children have never been alone since-.”

“Oh please, Oliver, say yes. They’re right across the garden. Rosy will come and get you if they need you.”

“I can watch them too,” Laurie offers, feeling all eyes once again turn to him. 

Marmee shakes her head, smiling. “Oh no, Laurie, you’re invited. You’re one of my children as far as I am concerned and I want you here as well.”

His throat suddenly dry, Laurie only nods, trying to smile politely.

Amy turns to her brother, leaning over the table. “Please say yes!”

Oliver’s eyes travel through the room, to Marmee and to Hannah, to Jo and Amy and Fred, and even to Laurie, where they linger for a moment, surely taking in the image of his daughter sleeping peacefully in his lap. “Okay. If Fred and John agree.”

"What do you say, my lord?" Amy asks her husband with a big smile which he doesn't seem to be able to withstand. 

Fred laughs and nods. "I'd be delighted."

Amy claps her hands. “Yes! Oh I’m excited! We can have a beautiful night and sit by the fire and play games like we used to and Jo can read to us and-”

“Oh I can maybe write us a play and we perform like we used to and-” Jo chimes in, the sisters talking over each other in excitement. 

Laurie catches Marmee’s satisfied smile. “It’s settled then.”

~ooo~

Laurie slips out of the house and is sure no one but Oliver notices him leaving. Outside, he feels like he can breathe again, away from all of the hovering and the questions and the energy of a house full of people he’s not used to anymore. He loves them all so dearly, but sometimes feels overwhelmed among them.

He makes the short trek over to his grandfather’s house, which, after his passing this last year, now belongs to him. A thought that doesn’t sit well with Laurie. 

He hasn’t been back since the funeral and he dreads taking another step into the house, looming massively before him, a promise of emptiness and fresh heartache. The door screeches in the hinges and falls wide open, the smell of stale air hitting his nostrils as he enters the hall.

Help will arrive tomorrow, to dust the shelves and sweep the floors, take the blankets off the furniture and light fires in the fireplaces. Then Meg and her family will arrive and they will all stay here, comfortably, and not cram into Marmee’s house which isn’t made to hold so many guests and husbands and children. 

But today, Laurie is the only living soul in this house and his steps echo against the high ceilings. His stroll leads him to the library and he ends up in front of the portrait of his grandfather, suddenly missing him fiercely. 

Missing all of this fiercely. 

“Hey, hey, Laurie.”

The soft voice pulls him out of his light sleep and he finds himself staring up Oliver standing over him, a faint, fond smile on his lips. 

Laurie sits up and looks around, remembering now how he had taken the sheet of the chaise closest to the fireplace he had made a fire in with the wood that had been waiting patiently for someone to wake up the house. 

“I apologize,” Laurie says and glances out of the window to find the sun already going down.

“No need.” Oliver sits down on the ground right in front of the still simmering fire. “We wondered where you might have gone to, so I offered to come look for you here.”

Laurie gets up from the chaise and joins Oliver on the floor, hugging his knees and watching the fire crack in front of them. 

“It is really good to see you,” Oliver repeats his words from a few hours ago, and Laurie feels his gaze on him. 

Laurie smiles, fighting the dual demons of happiness and sorrow breathing new life into his body, as it always happens when Oliver is around. “You, too,” he replies and means it. 

“Laurie, I’m sorry about your grandfather, I’m not sure if you’ve read my letter, I-.”

Laurie looks at him and nods. “I have. Thank you.” He understands Oliver’s words as what they are, an honest condolence, but he can’t help but be sad about the fact that simple small talk is all that is left between them.

“Jo tells me you are a professor now,” he continues their dance, half because he means it and half just to keep him talking. 

Oliver’s eyes light up. “Yeah. It’s- I’ve been asked to go to Europe and teach there. Paris, again.”

Laurie observes how both his heart and his throat constrict and lets it go, lets it pass. 

“Will you go?”

Oliver’s face falls slightly. “I have to think of the children. If I find a wife who is willing to come with me, maybe.”

The nausea comes and goes too and Laurie watches Oliver’s face and sees him realize what he just said and wince. “I-,” he scrambles for words. “I always worked towards being exceptional in my field, to make enough money to support my family. The job would pay for the children and enough so I can also send something back to Marmee and to Meg, if she lets me.”

Laurie nods again, feeling as if he can’t do anything else, doesn’t know what else to talk about. Oliver had always put his family first. It was nothing new, just running nails over old wounds.

“What about you?” Oliver asks, his voice taking on an intimate tone Laurie wishes he wouldn’t use or that he would realize how much that tone had seeped into Laurie’s whole being and engulfed him like a warm blanket. 

“I-” Laurie stops and thinks of what to say. He clenches his teeth and shakes his head but Oliver keeps looking at him patiently. 

“I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“Are you coming to live in this house?” Oliver motions at the room around them. “It’s yours now, isn’t it?”

Laurie looks around, his eyes grazing over the high ceilings and the old shelves. “I will likely sell it. This has never been my home, not really.”

He catches Oliver’s eyes who looks sad or worried for him and Laurie wants to reassure him that it’s okay but ends up saying nothing. 

They hover like that, trapped in the moment, their faces open and honest where their words can’t be.

“Oliver, I am sorry about Cath-”

Oliver shakes his head. “Don’t. Please?”

Laurie nods. 

“Your children are beautiful,” he tries again and that brings a smile to Oliver’s face.

“They are my world. And they’re growing so quickly, I swear I was holding them as babies in my arms just yesterday.”

Oliver laughs as he describes it, his whole face lighting up and Laurie can’t help but laugh with him, the love he has for his children apparent in every word.

“And Charlotte is already smitten with you,” Oliver continues, “just wait, she will now cling to you every chance she gets.”

Laurie blushes and lowers his gaze, touched by the simple approval of a child. “She is wonderful.”

“Laurie?”

“Yes?” 

Oliver seems nervous, Laurie hasn’t forgotten the small signs to look for, like his eyes darting around and how he’s pulling in his lips between his teeth. “I am aware that I have no right to ask this question but it’s all I’ve been thinking about since I first saw you today.”

“Oh?”

“Would you mind- can I hug you, Laurie?”

Laurie’s heart leaps. “Ye- yes, of course.”

They both get off the floor and they smile at each other then, awkwardly, like schoolboys asked to dance, not knowing how or where to hold on to.

But Oliver steps forward and Laurie takes a deep breath and then they embrace, one arm over the shoulder and one under, and it’s wrong and awkward but Laurie falls into the embrace as if he’d been drowning and has now been pulled to safety. 

Oliver feels the same, warm and solid and inviting, and he holds him tightly, his mind racing through memories and fantasies alike, too wired to process being in Oliver’s arms again. 

It doesn’t take him long until he’s fed up with it, with the wrongness of it, and he wriggles free enough to pull his arm out from under Oliver’s, just to wrap them both around Oliver’s neck, as tightly as they used to, two lovers embracing. Oliver’s hands slide over Laurie’s back and pull him in and then it’s perfect and they’re closer and it’s right, Laurie burying his face against Oliver’s throat, breathing him in, feeling like he’s coming home in Oliver’s arms, who’s all around him, his whole world again. 

One of them makes a sound, a contented sigh, and Laurie’s mind finally quiets completely, falling silent for a moment. 

He can feel Oliver breathe, his own chest following the rise and fall of the other, their hips aligned, their knees touching where Laurie has slipped one leg between Oliver’s. 

They stay like that for minutes, for hours, lifetimes pass, and Laurie couldn’t care less about what happens around them, if the world stopped turning as long as it meant he could stay in the moment forever. 

He doesn’t want to let go and yet he must. And they both know it. 

When they part, no words fall from their lips and Laurie catches the storm in Oliver’s eyes and he’s almost relieved to see it, to know that it’s not only him, after all this time. 

“We should go back,” Oliver says to him and his voice breaks at the last word. 

“Yes, we should.”

**_1869 - January - Paris - Laurie_ **

“Write immediately as soon as you arrive and tell me honestly about Beth’s health,” Oliver tells his sister, holding both her hands. 

“I will, I promise.”

They hug tightly but Laurie’s mind is still occupied with the events from the previous night. Otherwise, he would have greatly appreciated the pained look on Oliver’s face when they hugged and Oliver thought no one would be able to see the worry for his sister. Would have appreciated the glimpse into Oliver’s character, to see through his shields. 

They part and Oliver takes Amy’s bags and together with Fred, they store everything in the carriage. 

“Laurie,” Amy says in the way she always does it, full of love and the caring note only a sister has.

“Safe travels.” Laurie embraces her, smiling at the smell of the perfume she had put on, undoubtedly for the benefit of one Fred Vaughn. “Give my love to your sisters.”

She nods as they let go. “I will. And you, please answer Jo’s letters. I know you haven’t yet and-” she halts, swallowing hard, “life’s too short to be angry, you know.”

“I will,” he promises her, discovering that he means it, something pulling in his chest when he thinks about Jo. 

“And watch my brother, promise me that too, Laurie?” she whispers, leaning in as if she doesn’t want him to overhear. “I think he’s lonely and he could use a friend.”

Laurie sputters, hiding his reaction by nodding vigorously. “Don’t worry about him. I’ll make sure to keep him company.” He feels the blood rushing to his cheeks but can’t do anything to stop it, hoping she doesn’t notice. 

She frowns and for a second, he’s afraid she will ask, but then Oliver and Fred are by her side, ready to embark on their journey.

She smiles one last time at him and hugs her brother again, the impulse making him press a smile into her hair, then she accepts Fred’s hand to help her into the carriage. 

Oliver comes to stand beside Laurie as Fred closes the door and rounds the carriage to take his own seat. 

Laurie feels every hair on his body stand up at the close proximity of Oliver. He’s convinced that Oliver must notice Laurie’s rigid stance, the fluttering, nervous fingers on his side. He must know that Laurie can’t help but think about the previous night, about how he had done the inexcusable and violated Oliver’s privacy in the most awful way.

He must know that Laurie had been standing there long enough to see all of it, must have noticed the state he’d been in when he’d fled the room.

They stand in silence and watch the carriage take off, waving until Amy’s hand waving back is too far away to be seen.

For a second, Laurie doesn’t remember how to make his body move, but then Oliver takes a deep breath next to him and Laurie comes alive with fear of being confronted. He turns towards the house in a rude manner, he knows, not uttering a word, not even a glance towards him. 

“Laurie,” Oliver says, not yet raising his voice, and Laurie freezes. 

He turns around reluctantly, and looks up at Oliver, waiting for the anger and the cold disappointment.

What he finds though, is yet another Oliver, one who looks almost ashamed.

“Laurie, would you please hear me out?” 

Laurie nods his head, swallowing against his dry throat.

“I am- mortified that you had to witness what you did last night. It’s inexcusable and I understand if you’re feeling sick in my company and if you insist I will do my best to be out of your way at all times. I simply must implore you, do not tell my sisters. Please. That’s all I will ever ask of you and if you can grant me that courtesy, I promise I’ll never ask for anything else.”

Laurie almost sputters in disbelief, buries his hands in his pockets to keep them from fidgeting and looks to the ground, searching for the words to say.

There’s relief there, that Oliver hadn’t seen what Laurie was most afraid of and that he didn’t seem angry at him, but there’s something else too, a curious excitement about Oliver, in broad daylight acknowledging what he’d been caught at, ashamed, yes, but not enough to not speak about it. 

“I won’t tell,” Laurie promised, voice thin. “You won’t have to keep your distance. You-” he looks up carefully, “you won’t have to fear any repercussions from me.”

Oliver looks at him then, studying him, and Laurie feels small all of a sudden, like the only thing existing in the world are Oliver’s eyes on him. It’s a heady feeling, not entirely unpleasant, something he can’t fully place or reconcile.

Then Oliver straightens his back, and the mask — and by now Laurie knows now that it’s just a mask — slips back on.

“Thank you, Laurie.”


	3. And I'll watch you from afar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just so everyone can keep up (and because I changed the years this is taking place)
> 
> 1862/1863 - Concord, MA - Laurie is about 15  
> 1869/1870 - Paris, then Concord, MA - Laurie is about 22  
> 1874 - NY, then Concord, MA - Laurie is about 27

**_1862 - August - Concord, MA - Laurie_ **

At 15, Laurie knows he’s going to marry Jo. They’re spending almost every day together, when his lectures are over and she’s free from her duties. It’s a natural conclusion both Marmee and his grandfather have hinted at and Laurie is relieved to have found her and to be sure he loves her, having quietly feared he would have to marry some girl he didn’t care for. Her sisters already dearly loved him and Jo’s mother had all but adopted him, making Laurie feel more like part of her family than his own.

And for that reason, he is determined to make Oliver like him, too.

Being 17, Oliver never wants to take part in their theatrics, or their walks around town or into the woods or their games. With a feeling of guilt, Laurie is convinced it’s his presence that Oliver avoids, the looks he’s cast always blank, sometimes glacial. 

All summer long he tries to change Oliver’s mind, being especially friendly, asking to include him when he could, but Oliver declined every time. 

Knowing Jo would not have time for him, Laurie tries again on a hot summer day at the beginning of August, air so thick it’s a promise for a thunderstorm and heavy rain in the next few days. 

“Miss Jo is not home today,” Hannah tells him, as expected, when he knocks on the March’s door. 

“Oh.” He sees Oliver inside, head in a book sitting at the spot by the fireplace from which he has a full view of the front door. Laurie is pleased to find that Oliver is paying attention to the exchange. 

“See, it’s so hot outside, I wanted to go swimming by the waterfall,” Laurie says, putting just enough disappointment in his voice to keep Oliver’s interest in the conversation. “But I guess, I will go by myself then.”

“You’re not going alone, young man,” Hannah chides immediately like Laurie had hoped she would, had even counted on it. 

“I will be fine. I’ve gone many times and know the way.” 

“I will accompany him,” Oliver says from behind Hannah and stands suddenly. Laurie’s heart jumps. 

This had never worked before. Laurie’s almost too stunned to react, never really planned for what he’d do after Oliver didn’t dismiss him outright. 

“Um, yes, that- that would be good.” Laurie turns on the threshold, then flips back. “I- I just get my-, my- and meet you here in ten minutes?”

He’s almost convinced Oliver will laugh at him, tell him it was a joke and why would Laurie even think he’d want to accompany a child?

“Okay,” Oliver says and makes it sound as if it’s all the same to him. 

As promised, Laurie waits in front of the house not ten minutes later, a towel and a dry pair of underwear stashed in his satchel. 

Oliver joins him and they make their way towards the woods to the path that leads down to the stream where, when the summer becomes unbearable, Laurie and Jo and the others go to swim, rather than to the lake by the house. 

They don’t talk the whole way and to Laurie’s surprise, it’s not as uncomfortable as he would have thought. 

The trek takes them just a little over an hour and the closer they come to the spot Laurie is aiming for, the part where a small waterfall turns into the stream that ends between both their houses, the more excited Laurie gets. He already has an idea how their time together will go. 

In his head it’s fully formed: Oliver and he will spend the afternoon in the water and they will finally become friends and Oliver will beg him to ask Jo’s hand in marriage, so they could be good friends, family even, until they’re old and gray. 

“Have you ever jumped from there?” Oliver asks him when they stop at the spot and look at the waterfall.

Laurie contemplates lying just to seem braver than he is. Surely, Oliver wouldn’t like him if he turned out to be scared of things. But somehow Laurie simply shakes his head. “Have you?”

Oliver hesitates and then shakes his head too. “Should we try?”

Laurie instantly agrees. They both lose no time stripping off their clothes down to their underwear and then Laurie crawls behind Oliver up that small hill, holding on to branches and grass until he’s at the top, from where he feels he could touch the top of the trees if he could only reach a little farther. 

“It’s beautiful up here,” Laurie says and then blushes, chiding himself for appearing too eager, or maybe too easily impressed. 

“Yes,” Oliver simply says when he comes to stand next to Laurie, eyes fastened on the horizon, and Laurie dares to take a closer look at how Oliver’s toes are buried in the grass and how his calves look like those of a man, not a child like Laurie’s do. He imagines Oliver jumping, how his body will breach the surface of the water and how he will look like coming back up for air. 

Something like fear coils in Laurie’s stomach. How will Oliver look at him? At the scrawny awkward kid with long limbs and pale skin. 

He’s pulled out of his musings and fears he’d been caught up in when Oliver suddenly touches Laurie’s arm and looks at him, a gleam evident in his eyes. 

Oliver’s grin makes Laurie forget about his fear altogether. “Ready?” Oliver asks and it’s not a question but a challenge. 

Laurie looks down the waterfall, and it looks steeper from up here. But he’d seen so many of the town’s boys jump from here over the years so he’s fairly certain he could do it, too.

“Ready,” Laurie says and matches Oliver’s grin. 

**_1869 - January - Paris - Laurie_ **

Living at Aunt March’s house, Laurie slowly finds a routine. He begins his days late, then often only joins Aunt March for lunch and dinner, if he’s not otherwise engaged. He spends his days writing his opera or playing music or reading books or wandering around the city. A habit that, as he hears about often enough from Aunt March, wastes time and makes it appear as if he’s throwing his life away. Oliver plays peacemaker when he’s there, but he rarely ever is. He’s rarely anywhere that Laurie is.

One day in late January, he wanders into the sitting room, having missed lunch because he’d been up most of the night reading. 

“Laurie, please sort through the mail, would you? Tell me if there’s anything interesting.”

Aunt March doesn’t even grace him with a glance, instead she keeps her eyes on the activities in her garden she’s been watching from her chair, pulled right up to the window. Laurie doesn’t have to look to know what she sees. The gardener and the maid, whose job it was to bring out food for them once a day. Laurie knows all about it, Aunt March always suspecting romantic entanglements between them and never growing tired of watching them interact from a distance. 

Laurie bites his tongue and walks over to the small stack of letters that had been placed on the table. He picks them up to shuffle through, narrating what he finds. 

“Ms Sheffield is writing to you and sending some more of her pressed flowers it seems like.” He feels around the edges, a thicker page or cloth folded into the letter. 

Aunt March makes a noise of disapproval, of boredom. “Go on.”

“An invitation to a summer ball going by the illustrations on the envelope. Oh, and Mr Darby writes again, is he still trying to win over your heart?”

“My inheritance would be the more accurate assessment. Go on.”

Laurie chuckles at her dry comment and places the aforementioned letter underneath the stack. 

“Here’s one from Miss Catherine Holgrove.” He turns the envelope in his hands. “Oh. It’s for Oliver.”

“Ah, the good Miss Catherine,” Aunt March comments and Laurie can hear that she must like her. “She’s Oliver’s fiancée.”

“Fiancée?” Laurie repeats before he can think better of it. 

“Yes, yes. They’re to be married as soon as Oliver has finished his studies here. Lovely woman. Filthy rich. And proper. She will make a fine wife and mother for his children.”

“I- didn’t know that,” Laurie states and is irritated at himself to be so unsettled by the news.

“Oh yes, a rather smart decision by our dear Oliver. If he so insists on his studies and becoming a professor he will be penniless for the rest of his life. So if he wants to support his sisters, he better marry rich.”

“I’ve heard my name?”

Oliver strides in at that, his confident voice echoing through the room, and Laurie turns towards him.

“Catherine has sent you a letter,” Aunt March explains, waving her hand at Laurie who’s still standing in the middle of the room, holding the object of discussion.

“Oh, thank you.” Oliver snaps it out of Laurie’s hand, and then swiftly walks over to Aunt March to press a kiss to her head, which she reacts to with an exasperated groan, and then he walks back out of the room, not granting either of them another word.

“Always studying, that young man,” Aunt March says and finally looks at Laurie. “Something you might want to do as well, I imagine?”

Laurie forces a smile, shaking off the uncomfortable feeling Oliver’s brisk visit had left him with, and he places the remaining letters on a table where Aunt March can reach them easily and takes his leave as well.

“Oliver.” Laurie calls out once he’s reached him in the hall, straightening his back as Oliver stops in his tracks and turns around. 

“Yes?”

The blank face doesn’t scare Laurie as much anymore, having learned, or rather suspecting, that it is mostly a facade. 

“I’d rather you don’t treat me like a boy with leprosy,” Laurie pushes the words out, surprising himself at how angry he sounds. 

Oliver frowns, but steps towards him. “Excuse me?”

“I am well aware that you’re avoiding being in the same room with me and I find it hurtful.” He meets Oliver’s eyes. “I’d rather you treated me with more respect.”

Oliver looks stunned. “I was giving you space,” he says, but his voice is low, intimate, and Laurie understands his meaning.

“I told you, you don’t need to do such things. I do not think less of you or feel repelled by your presence. You are free to be who you are around me.” Laurie feels a surge of embarrassment as well as pride saying it and finding that he means it. 

Oliver hesitates, looking as if he’s processing what Laurie’s said. Then he tilts his head in question and Laurie sputters, scrambling for words. 

“I do not-, I am not-, I’m just-, I merely wanted to assure you.” His cheeks burn and there’s nothing he can do except avoid Oliver’s eyes. 

Oliver chuckles. “Noted.” And then, softer. “Thank you.”

~ooo~

Throughout the following days, Oliver doesn’t make good on his word. He’s out most of the time, Laurie only seeing him at dinner time, their conversations stilted. Oliver then usually takes off the minute they’re finished eating.

Laurie hates it. He starts to connect seeing Oliver with a fluttering, nervous feeling in his stomach, undoubtedly awaiting a moment that would inevitably come when Oliver would dismiss him as if he couldn’t wait to get out of his space. 

A few weeks after Amy had left, Laurie almost forgets that Oliver is living in the same house as him. Almost. Until he hears his voice or his footsteps in another room or down the hall and Laurie stops whatever it is he’s doing, listening to it, wondering if it’s anger that makes his heart beat faster in his chest. 

That is why, when he wanders into the kitchen after midnight one day to find something to eat as he’s developed a habit of doing so, he startles to find Oliver already standing by the table, a knife in his hand. 

They stare at each other for a long moment, Oliver looking as surprised as Laurie feels, his face not finding its mask quickly enough. 

“I was hungry,” Laurie explains, unsure if he should walk inside and join Oliver or if he should leave and come back at another time. 

“I’m slicing fruit, if you want some?” Oliver offers, gesturing to the plate in front of him. 

“I- yes, thank you.” Laurie feels almost daring, walking inside and coming to stand beside him. 

Only then he sees that Oliver had been slicing peaches into small quarters, his fingers covered in the juice of the fruit.

Laurie swallows against his nervousness. To cover up his sudden fluster, he reaches for a slice and puts it into his mouth, his heart picking up speed when he notices Oliver watching him do it. 

“How’s your opera coming along?” Oliver asks and Laurie can’t decide whether he’s being made fun of or if the question is genuine. He’d made the mistake of talking about it at the dinner table once. But Oliver leans against the counter next to him, close enough they almost touch shoulders, and looks at him expectantly.

“It’s- it’s coming along.”

Oliver laughs. “That doesn’t sound too convincing.”

Laurie shrugs his shoulder. There isn’t much to say. He could hardly tell Oliver that his mind is occupied with memories from that night he should never have seen. With images of Oliver, of his face, and his neck, and his hands.

They fall into silence then, Laurie not knowing what to say and Oliver seemingly content with not speaking at all.

He still looks at him, his eyes trained on Laurie’s face, and it makes Laurie uneasy. 

His cheeks heating up, he forces himself to meet that gaze, in an attempt to not back down.

But he miscalculated. The second their eyes meet, Laurie can feel his nerves taking over. The room shrinks down to the space they both occupy and he is acutely aware of Oliver, of how close he is, how his chest rises and falls. What he smells like. 

Close enough now Laurie can feel Oliver’s breath hitting his mouth. He hadn’t noticed either of them moving and yet suddenly, Oliver’s face is much closer to his own. 

And then, from one moment to the next, Laurie realizes that Oliver is going to kiss him. Will press his lips against Laurie’s mouth, just like Laurie knows to kiss women. For the sake of it, and maybe with the promise of more. 

And with a shocking realization, Laurie finds that he is not planning to move away or pull back but instead, will tilt up his head to offer his lips to be kissed. By Oliver. 

A surge of excitement and fear waves through his body.

Oliver leans down and Laurie closes his eyes, can already feel the warmth of Oliver’s mouth on his in the air that is still separating them, as if the kiss is already imprinting itself on Laurie’s lips simply in anticipation of it. 

Then a window closes down the hall, a draft or someone choosing to close it, and the sudden sound startles them both, makes them spring apart and listen for footsteps that never come. 

Oliver is the first to look away. He clears his throat and brings distance between the two of them. 

The moment is broken and Laurie is sure he didn’t miss the same disappointment in Oliver’s eyes that he himself feels.

**_1874 - December - Concord, MA - Jo_ **

The week before Christmas brings the second snow of the season and this time it snows all night and coats the whole outside world in a thick layer of fluffy white flakes everyone is excited about, pretending it’s for the children but silently being transported back to their own childhoods and to the joy fresh snow brings. 

To entertain the children and, to an extent, the adults, the March family decides to take a long winter walk to the hills on the other side of town where the children can go sledding while the adults share the latest gossip.

Everyone joins in on the trek, even Hannah is convinced to don her hat and scarf and leave the housework for later. 

Jo trails along at the very end, happy to watch her family walk in front of her: Marmee and Hannah with Meg and Rosy, pulling the squealing children on two wooden sleds behind them, then Fred and John in a lively discussion about what Jo knows to be politics, followed by Oliver and Laurie, looking like two acquaintances wrapped up in deep conversation. And last, there’s Amy, walking by Jo’s side, arm linked through her own.

“Josephine March, tell me why you’re watching Laurie and Oliver like a hawk,” Amy startles her, leaning over to whisper the words even though no one is close enough to hear them. 

“I am not!” Jo responds immediately, and so forcefully that Amy’s eyes sparkle like the eyes of someone who knows they’re about to uncover a secret. 

“Oh, don’t you lie to me,” Amy says, pulling at her arm. “You study them as if you expect them to fall into a brawl any moment.”

“Let it go, Amy,” Jo warns and looks at her sister pointedly, raising her eyebrows. 

“You’re no fun,” she pouts but does let it go and Jo is grateful.

They arrive at the hills where already a smattering of children, red-cheeked and out of breath, run up the slope only to slide down on makeshift sleds and old rugs a minute later. 

Not to be outdone, Jo and Meg go the first rounds with Daisy, Demi and Charlotte until Jo’s sides ache from laughter and her hands are cold from the snow and the wind. She switches places with Amy, takes Olivia off her lap so that Amy can go with the children next who show no signs of slowing down. Laurie challenges her to a race and the adults and children are cheering them on, taking sides until the group is evenly divided. 

Oliver comes to stand next to Jo, his son fast asleep in his arms. 

“I miss Beth today,” Jo says quietly and she smiles at her brother, who seems to understand. 

“She would have loved this,” Oliver agrees with a sigh.

They watch as Charlotte climbs on the sled in front of Laurie while Amy has both of Meg’s children on hers and they’re shouting and laughing going down the hill. Jo glances to watch Oliver watch Laurie with his daughter and there is sadness in his eyes. The same sadness she has been familiar with all their lives. 

Jo wants to reach out and comfort him but doesn’t know how to.

“You know,” Oliver starts, surprising her. “I was always so sure Laurie would end up marrying either you or Amy.”

Jo is momentarily stunned to silence when a thought grips her throat and squeezes her heart.

“Is that why you left?” she asks before she can think better of it. 

His eyes snap to hers. “What?”

“So you don’t have to watch one of us marry him?” She knows she’s going too far, her own words scaring her now that she has said them, and the fear on Oliver’s face is answer enough.

“What?” he says again, his voice having lost all tone, his face ashen.

It’s one of those moments Jo has been finding herself in so often since they were children, one where she wants to dare to take the last step and ask him, to speak the words out loud, finally crossing the bridge to her big brother, to find out if it would hold her weight. 

She pulls back, just like she always does. 

“Oh, nothing, forget I said anything. My silly head.” She laughs and tries to disarm the situation, to wipe the fear off her brother’s face.

“Papa, I’ve been the fastest!” Charlotte shouts and runs up to them, Laurie close behind, his cheeks red as hers, and both smiling from ear to ear. 

Both Jo and Oliver welcome the distraction.

“The young miss is not wrong,” Laurie declares proudly.

Oliver bows down to his daughter. “I’m very proud of you, little one,” he tells her and Jo and Laurie share a glance, Laurie’s eyes sparkling with the exertion and something else that makes Jo pause.

The way back is less cheerful, a fatigue settling over the group that only comes from a day spent playing outside in the snow and the brisk, cold air. Every last one of the children is asleep, either packed in layers of blankets and scarves on the sleighs or over the shoulder of a parent. 

Jo once again trails a little behind the group, Laurie by her side, content in walking with arms interlaced and watching their family amble along in front of them. 

“This is good, isn’t it?” Jo asks him, voice low as if not to disturb the quiet, comfortable mood they’re in. 

Laurie turns to her and she can see the answer on his face even if he’d chosen not to answer. 

“Yes,” he finally says and there’s a weight behind the word that touches Jo to her core. 

She studies his face, contemplating whether or not to bring it up, the obvious thing, the invisible presence, like something they carried with them and which remains in their midst. It’s something almost tangible, so much that some can feel it as if they’re brushing against it and some can see it out of the corner of their eyes.

“Teddy, you’ve never told me what happened between you and Oliver in Paris. And I know I shouldn’t pry, but-”

Laurie turns to her, eyes wide, an unknown mirror to the look Oliver had given her.

“Well, but- I can see it in you so clearly, something happened there, and Oliver would never talk to me about matters of his own heart and-”

“Jo, please,” Laurie says and his voice silences her immediately and makes guilt rise in her chest.

She doesn’t offer an apology but she doesn’t say anything more to the matter either. And so they continue their walk without speaking, each lost in their own thoughts. 

But just when the house comes into view, Laurie reaches for his collar and pulls on a chain he’s wearing around his neck. 

Out comes a small, simple pocket watch, the gold casing etched with lines that Jo knows make an intricate pattern. 

Fumbling with the watch, gently grazing the pattern with his thumb and only glancing up to Jo for brief a moment, Laurie asks “You know about this watch, don’t you?”

Jo nods. She remembers vividly the first time she saw it. And the second.

“Has he told you about it?”

“No. I’ve seen it among all the gifts he brought from Paris.”

“You know the words engraved inside the lid?”

Tears suddenly sting in Jo’s eyes. “With great admiration, in deepest devotion.”

Laurie nods and swallows visibly, blinking rapidly and a myriad of emotions are playing over his face.

“I’ve worn it ever since,” Laurie admits to her, voice rough. “But I know that-” he takes a deep breath and Jo wants to carry some of the weight that seemingly crushes his chest. “He’ll remarry and have a wonderful wife and wonderful mother to his children and I will be perfectly content being an uncle to them and a friend to him, if he lets me.”

He struggles with a smile then and it turns her stomach. 

“Liar,” she says lovingly, and stretches to kiss his cheek.


	4. And I'll watch you watch me

**_1862 - August - Concord, MA - Laurie_ **

“We should go back,” Oliver says and wakes Laurie from his dozing by the stream, one hand casually dangling over the edge, fingers grazing the surface of the water. 

“Hm?” He props himself up on his elbows and looks up to find Oliver standing a few steps away, his face turned towards the sky. 

“We should go, it’s going to rain soon.” Laurie looks up at the sky too then and indeed finds dark clouds hanging threateningly low above them. 

Laurie scrambles to his feet, finds his shirt and pulls it over his head. During his half-sleep he’d missed how cold it had gotten. 

“Ready?” Oliver asks him, and when Laurie nods, they take off. 

Not a second later wind picks up, first a sound of rustling leaves and then Laurie feels it against his skin. The first raindrops hit and both boys pick up speed, scurrying through the woods. 

“Wait,” Oliver stops him with a hand on his arm, cold and wet, both at this point drenched down to their bones.

He grabs his chin then too, turning Laurie’s head so he sees the shed through the thick rain. 

They make their way over to find the shed unlocked. It’s nothing more than planks made into a makeshift cover but it’s dry and offers enough space for the two of them. It smells of wet soil and the first few dead leaves of the year and the sound of the rain muffled and distant once they’re both inside. 

They sit down, facing each other, their boots touching in the tight space. It’s dark too, besides the noise of the rain, submerging them in a space removed from reality. 

Soon enough, Laurie starts to shiver. His skin is damp, his clothes not the least bit dry, his teeth starting to rattle. He’s trying to hide it at first by hugging his knees to his chest. 

Eventually, Oliver notices. He eyes Laurie impatiently as if Laurie’s discomfort is what makes him feel discomfort too. 

Laurie rubs his arms and his legs and smiles vaguely at Oliver, but he can’t help it, his whole body is shaking so much, fighting it makes his legs cramp up. 

“Turn around,” Oliver says, inching closer and letting his legs fall open. 

“Wh-what?”

Like any other 15 year old, Laurie expects a trap, to be made fun of. 

“Body heat will help. If you fall ill, Marmee will have my head.”

Laurie doesn’t move, the thought of touching Oliver making his cheeks heat up. 

“Laurie!” Oliver makes an impatient gesture and then Laurie does finally move, awkwardly turning and crawling back until a solid, warm weight presses against his back and then two strong arms surround him. Even at 17, they’re the arms of a man, especially compared to Laurie’s still-boyish figure. 

Slowly, but with a sure confidence, Oliver rubs over his arms and legs like Laurie had done to himself, but instead of clammy cold hands, Oliver’s are warm and somehow dry and make Laurie’s skin heat up under all of the friction. 

“Better now?” Oliver asks and his voice is so close to Laurie’s ear it startles him. 

“Yeah,” he says and it’s true, his whole body having calmed down and warmed up a bit. But now that he isn’t focused on fighting the shivers, he notices every spot where Oliver is pressed against him and it sparks a warm, comfortable feeling throughout his body that somehow makes him nervous.

Oliver’s hands are back on his own knees, resting, and only where Laurie leans against him. He can’t help the voice inside his head wishing Oliver’s hands back on him. The thought doesn’t fade.

He sucks in a quick breath when Oliver leans his chin on Laurie’s shoulder, their cheeks touching, and Laurie wonders if his curls are tickling Oliver’s face but he keeps all of that to himself, in order to not disturb the moment. His heart is thrumming in his chest, he’s overwhelmed by Oliver’s proximity, and Laurie doesn’t know what to do with this feeling he’s having, so he does nothing. Just sits there, keeping still and committing the feel of Oliver’s soft breath against his cheek to memory. Only years later will he realize how odd it had been for Oliver to do that, but in the moment, there are no thoughts in Laurie’s mind. He’s just calm. 

They’re found not half an hour later, their names shouted, the shed closer to the main road than Laurie had noticed at first, and when they emerge from the shed, rain still pounding, Laurie’s grandfather looks stern and angry, while Marmee has a look of relief on her face. They’re ushered into the carriage and no words are spoken until they arrive; it seems the whole March family is waiting for them. 

Amy runs up to them first, her face tear-stricken as she hugs them both fiercely. Laurie is passed around like a sailor lost at sea, coming home after months of longing and worrying, and they all hug him tightly. 

“Where were you?” Jo attacks him with questions immediately, seemingly more excited than worried for him. “Tell me at once! Did you hide in a bear hole? Did you make a shelter out of leaves and tree branches?”

“No.” Laurie glances over to Oliver who avoids his eyes now, his face stern. “We- we found a shed and hid in there. Oliver kept us warm.”

He doesn’t know why he says it, regrets it as soon as it comes out of his mouth but the words are said and first Jo looks at him puzzled, then her face hardens and her eyes go cold and Laurie doesn’t understand any of it. 

“If he’s now your best friend, I’m afraid we can no longer be best friends,” she clips and Laurie follows after her when she storms away, assuring her they’re still the best of friends, all the while feeling the ghost of Oliver’s breath still hitting his skin.

Oliver doesn’t speak to him after that. 

**_1869 - March - Paris - Laurie_ **

Laurie likes rainy days the most. He doesn’t offer that information to anyone, of course, but rainy days mean he can spend his time inside and with whatever he likes. No one will chide him for not going out and doing something with his life if the weather is poor. 

On the days when he wakes up early, he likes to sneak into the music room, which is far away from anyone else’s rooms, so he can play his music in peace, write his opera or silly melodies or play around with works from the big maestros. He often gets so lost in it, that he only emerges from that room when his body’s needs can no longer be ignored. 

This morning, he has already spent hours in there and he’s so absorbed that he doesn’t hear the footsteps approaching, then stopping by the open door. 

But after a while, sensing a presence behind him, Laurie stops his playing, pulled out of the deep meditative state he always falls so easily into when working with music. 

His fingers leave the keys and the music still echoes when he turns around to find Oliver looking at him. Not in any mocking way and not annoyed either, but with a sort of wonder that makes Laurie want to turn away from the intensity of his stare. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to disturb you,” Oliver apologizes, voice low. Almost intimate. 

“You’re not disturbing. I’m just playing around.”

“You’re very talented.”

Laurie laughs at that, surprised by the compliment and coming from Oliver especially. He smiles tightly, looking up at him waiting for him to leave or say anything else, but neither happens. Instead, Oliver keeps on studying him. 

“I- I could play for you if you’d like?” Laurie hears himself say, his face heating up at what feels almost like boldness. Like daring. He hasn’t forgotten their moment in the kitchen, has in fact thought about not much else. 

Curiosity. That’s what Laurie has decided drove him that night. What made him want to know what Oliver’s lips would taste like, with peach juice still clinging to them. The healthy curiosity of an artist. 

“Can you play again what you just played?” Oliver asks him, striding into the room to sit behind Laurie, and there it is, a bit of the bravado that Laurie knows so well and that has nothing but irritated him since they were children. 

Well, almost.

Laurie turns back towards the piano, Oliver a thrilling presence behind him. He stumbles over the first notes, something he’s sure Oliver doesn’t notice, but then he sinks back into it, the music floating through the room and making his fingers dance as if it’s the music itself that makes him play rather than him creating the music. 

When it ends, Oliver laughs in surprise. “You changed it.”

Laurie shrugs his shoulders, trying to hide a smug smile from Oliver. “I just changed it a little bit.”

“But I wanted you to play what you played before!” Oliver’s voice is exasperated but laced with humor.

Laurie suppresses a giggle as he realizes how much he enjoys this, their banter, comfortable in a way but with a hint of something else beneath the surface. 

To keep the memories of that night at bay, Laurie turns to the piano once more and starts playing again. 

His fingers flying again, music flowing through him once again, he only realizes Oliver has stood up from his seat when the sudden heat of his body tingles against Laurie’s neck. Laurie’s hand falters on the next notes, but he covers it up by ending the piece in a theatrical manner and leans back when it’s done, almost brushing against Oliver with his shoulder. 

“I can’t believe you changed it again!”

“Well, I altered Bach’s version the way Lizt would have played it.”

“Can you play the first one again?” Oliver’s voice dips and he leans forward, his hand coming to rest on the piano and for a moment, Laurie can’t pry his eyes off that hand, remembering the peach juice clinging to his fingers before they were licked clean. 

“Okay,” Laurie replied, shocked at how easily his voice adopts the same soft and intimate note. 

He plays with Oliver standing behind him, his skin prickling nervously and the music doesn’t take him completely this time, his mind far too occupied with his beating heart and how his hands are starting to sweat. 

Laurie isn’t used to playing for an audience, has always preferred to keep his music to himself. It must be the fear of judgment that makes him so nervous, Laurie decides, the fear of being ridiculed. 

“You’re really good,” Oliver says when it’s over and Laurie hasn’t turned around to face him. “I didn’t know you played, but you’re really good at it.”

He doesn’t know how to reply to Oliver’s words, can’t place his tone either, sounding almost indignant. 

“Enjoy your day,” comes the next sentence out of Oliver’s mouth, and now something cold rushes down the back of Laurie’s neck. The words sound cold, too, and flippant, dismissive. 

Grinding his teeth Laurie turns but Oliver pats Laurie’s shoulder once and then faces the door, leaving the room in two strides and leaving Laurie speechless.

~ooo~

A week passes after what Laurie calls ‘the piano incident’ in his head and he’s rarely seen Oliver since. Laurie’s mind seems to fill the moments Oliver’s missing from with images inside his head of Oliver in other moments, picturing him like he looked at the ball, his face in ecstasy or like he’d looked in the kitchen, intense and determined. Or replaying the words ‘You’re really good’ so often Laurie wonders how it hasn’t worn down the edges yet, how the sentence isn’t frayed and meaningless inside his mind.

The clock down the hall striking midnight makes Laurie jump. He looks up from his papers, so engrossed in his writing, he’d forgotten everything around him, and now he finds his hands all smudged with ink. Getting up and over to the bowl of water by the window, he cleans his fingers as best he can and puts away his tools for the night.

He doesn’t feel tired. He’s on edge, something buzzing underneath his skin. The same thing he’s been feeling a few nights now, ever since a certain idea had entered his mind. 

He leaves the library quietly, making his way upstairs, his heart beating faster inside his chest as he passes Oliver’s door. 

Is he still awake? Still sitting at his desk, pouring over his studies like Laurie had been doing moments ago?

Laurie passes his door, steps only faltering only slightly. He continues into his own room, beginning his ritual of readying himself for bed. 

He is still in his day clothes when he makes the decision.

He knocks twice on Oliver’s door before there’s a soft reply. Gently, as if he’s committing some sort of crime, Laurie enters the bedroom and closes the door behind himself. 

He doesn’t step into the room just yet, hovering in the entrance, one hand still on the doorknob behind him, and he finds Oliver sitting on one of the two armchairs by the fireplace, a book in his lap.

“Laurie,” Oliver says, his voice not unfriendly, but surprised. “What can I do for you?”

He closes his book and places it on the small table to his right. 

Laurie is still rooted to the spot, his curiosity slowly morphing into embarrassment now that he’s here.

“Laurie?” Oliver leans forward, a frown crossing his face.

Laurie takes a deep breath and pushes away from the door. “I promised not to tell.” 

He watches Oliver’s face fall, no doubt imagining Laurie spilling his secret, and Laurie hurries to continue. “Will you promise not to tell either?”

Oliver’s face changes once again, his eyes widening, his mouth falling open on an exhale. 

“Nothing will leave this room, you have my word.”

Laurie takes another step, his hands shaking with adrenaline and arousal alike. He’s played this moment inside his head for days, being in this room now, with Oliver in front of him that it’s like a Pavlovian response, heat already pooling in his belly. He presses his hands into fists, not a word coming out of his mouth.

“Laurie,” Oliver repeats and his voice has changed, curls differently around Laurie’s name. As if he can sense Laurie’s arousal, as if he, too, is aroused. “What is it that you came to me for?”

“I want to see you like that again.” The words leave his lips so quietly he wonders if Oliver has even heard him.

But then Oliver blinks up at him, his chest rising on a slow, deep breath, and that is proof enough. 

For a moment, nothing happens, and fear builds in Laurie’s chest, dark and twisted, shame crawling up his spine like a snake ready to bite.

“Sit,” Oliver says then, his word like a whip through the silence.

Laurie fidgets helplessly, his pulse jumping, and he does as he’s told, finding a seat on the second armchair, across from Oliver.

They’re close enough that Laurie could touch Oliver’s foot if he would stretch his leg. 

“I need you to be very specific, Laurie,” Oliver says, his voice quiet but sharp. “I will show you what you’re asking for but I need to know exactly what that is.”

Laurie struggles to meet Oliver’s eyes, finding too much openness in them, too much truth.

“I want to see you like- like that night of the party. I can’t get it out of my head.”

Oliver draws in a sharp breath and Laurie holds on to the fabric of his pants, twisting it.

“I keep thinking about what I saw. And what I didn’t see.”

“You want to see what you missed?”

Laurie nods, his throat dry.

The light from the fire flickers across Oliver’s face, illuminating his full lips, the tongue darting out to wet them.

“As you wish,” comes the liberating reply and Laurie exhales then, his arousal flooding his head, making it spin.

Another moment of anticipation, and then Oliver moves to spread his legs and puts one hand on his crotch, pressing down.

Laurie stifles a whimper, his eyes following every movement of Oliver’s hand. The way it presses down a few more times, before massaging the spot.

Laurie can make out Oliver’s cock hardening underneath the fabric.

“Is this what you wanted, Laurie?”

Laurie nods frantically. His breath is coming in short bursts, his tongue running over his lips repeatedly. His nails dig into the flesh of his thighs as, agonizingly slow, Oliver undoes the button of his pants and pushes a hand inside.

“Please,” Laurie moans before Oliver can ask for reassurance another time.

Oliver’s face betrays his bravado a first time then, a moan leaving his own mouth.

Without another delay Oliver pulls his cock free of the confines of his pants and Laurie whimpers, loudly this time, the sight of another men’s hard cock nothing like he imagined it would be, nothing like he thought he would react, being a man himself.

It’s beautiful. That’s the word dancing inside Laurie’s head. Beautiful and desirable.

He feels Oliver’s eyes on him, undoubtedly studying him and waiting for a disgusted reaction that doesn’t come.

“More,” Laurie speaks quietly.

“Fuck,” Oliver moans, his eyes falling closed as he performs the first strokes. 

Laurie is mesmerized by the huge hand engulfing that cock, rubbing it and making it grow bigger still. 

He watches Oliver spit in his hand before putting it back on his cock and he shivers as if he can feel the slicked up hand on himself.

Oliver’s eyes flutter closed before he pries them open, finding Laurie immediately as if he’d changed his mind and wanted to see Laurie watch him. 

Laurie’s mouth goes dry.

He lets it fall open, wetting his lips with his tongue and feeling a thrill every time he catches Oliver tracing that movement with his eyes. 

His movements speed up, his groans getting louder.

Laurie, without knowing he’s doing it, leans forward, propping one hand on the chair between his legs, and while doing so, pressing against his own hardness, confined in his pants.

Oliver’s rhythm stutters, his dark blown eyes widening as he catches Laurie’s movement, the tiny push of his crotch against his arm.

“More, please,” Laurie whispers and Oliver shudders and his head falls back against the chair. He grunts, picking up speed and it’s his unashamed lust on full display that makes Laurie dizzy, that makes him focus so thoroughly on Oliver, wanting to see him finish, so much that he thinks people could come in or the house could catch fire and still Laurie would want to sit here, in front of Oliver, watching him in throes of passion, moaning, hips pumping. 

Oliver grunts out his orgasm, eyes flying open and again finding Laurie’s, before he’s shooting thick ropes of semen over his hand, his pants, his shirt. 

Laurie presses against his own hand between his spread legs and shudders from the mix of pleasure in the image before him, the sounds of Oliver panting and the pressure of his own touch.

Yearning floods through him, more than just for the physical touch, or for a mirroring of what he’d just seen on his own body. 

Oliver’s face is flushed, the fine hairs on his forehead and around his ears damp, his lips full and red, and Laurie is flooded with the sudden urge to touch him, to trace the dampness with his tongue, to meet those lips with his own. 

He shivers violently at the thought, never having experienced anything like it. 

Oliver’s eyes clear just slightly and he’s pensive, studying Laurie, his chest still rising quickly. “Laurie,” he starts, his voice shooting another bout of pleasure through him. “If you’d like me to-.”

He lets the sentence hang in the air between them and Laurie gasps at the images assaulting his mind. 

Images of Oliver walking over, of him kneeling in front of Laurie, of him reaching out to place his own hand where Laurie’s pushing against his own hardness.

Fear follows right after, a dreadful realization on the heels of his mind shouting “Yes, yes please”.

Laurie stands abruptly, knowing what he must look like, the state he’s in, his pants tenting and his breath coming in short bursts. “Thank you, Oliver,” he breathes his reply and then, like it’s becoming a pattern, bolts out of the room.


	5. And I’ll watch you come closer

**_1874 - December - Concord, MA - Laurie_ **

“Meg, are you sure?” Jo asks her sister for the fifth or sixth time to which she laughs in response and patiently confirms once more. 

“Yes, I am. Go have your fun. Marmee and I will watch over the children, and Rosie is also here to help us. Don’t worry about us.”

Marmee has Olivia propped on her hip while entertaining little Robert who sits in his chair and is utterly fascinated by the spoon Marmee holds out for him; she doesn’t even look over to the little group forming at the entrance, too happily engaged with her grandchildren. 

“Oh thank you, thank you,” Amy hugs and kisses both her sister and her mother and then she ruffles her daughter’s hair before coming to stand by her husband. “Jo!” she shouts up the stairs. 

“Coming!” is the quick and prompt reply as Jo rushes down the stairs, fastening the jacket around her shoulders. 

Laurie watches all the excitement from the front door, his heart filled with fondness. His eyes flicker to Oliver, who kneels in front of his daughter, instructing her to be on her best behavior while he’s gone, laughing when she impatiently wriggles out of her father’s embrace and runs back to where her cousins are playing by the fireplace. 

“Ready?” Fred asks and they all agree, done up in their best evening wear, about to spend a night at the opera two towns over. 

The trip in the carriage is lively and full of excited chatter, everyone talking over each other and laughter filling the space, and Laurie feels more alive and at home than he has in a very long time. Jo sits by his side, their arms entangled, wrapped up in a discussion with Amy that makes Oliver across from him smile in a way that pours just as much pain as happiness into Laurie. Laurie fixes his gaze on that deep, happy smile that shows Oliver’s teeth and makes him look that much younger. 

Oliver meets his gaze and his smile fades, turning into something different, private. 

Laurie’s breath stutters. He longs for the opportunity to hold that gaze, to once again lose himself in those deep blue eyes that make him think of a long lost past, of another world, one where endless chances and boundless freedom seemed within their reach. 

Laurie is the first to look away. He lets the pain simmer in his chest, breathing through it.

When they arrive, they find their seats in the second row and they shuffle into them amongst much laughter, until they are settled in their respective chairs. Laurie takes his at the far end, Oliver next to him, then Jo and Amy, Fred and John.

The seats are not very spacious, so narrow that Laurie’s leg presses against Oliver’s and he pulls away twice with a quick, apologetic glance until, when it happens a third time, he does nothing and instead relaxes into his seat and tries to, at the same time, both ignore and enjoy the touch. 

The audience quiets and the opera starts, Laurie instantly engrossed with the story, the music. He hadn’t been to see one in a long time and when he had, it had brought his emotions too close to the surface and he spent most of the evening trying not to break into sobs.

Now though, without ever completely forgetting about the man sitting next to him, he follows the swell of the music and is pulled in by the story in no time. 

Which is why, when Oliver’s hand brushes his, he startles and his eyes fly up to the man next to him. 

Oliver blushes and apologizes quietly, retreating his hand. 

Laurie’s mind reels. He’s not able to go back to the opera on stage, finds himself instead deep in thoughts. 

Did Oliver apologize because that touch had been accidental? Or had he, in an apparent innocent gesture, tried to touch his hand on purpose and had apologized because Laurie’s reaction led him to believe his touch had been unwelcome? 

He spends the next minutes debating that question until he comes to a decision, heart beating faster in his chest. He discretely moves the coat he had previously placed neatly folded on his lap to the side he shares with Oliver so it covers his and Oliver’s leg. 

Oliver glances at him, eyes widening slightly, but shows no sign of resistance, so Laurie reaches for Oliver’s hand under the cover of his coat and watches Oliver’s chest rise on a deep breath when their fingers touch. Again when their fingers interlace. 

Laurie pulls his eyes away and pretends to follow the happenings on stage, his body soaking Oliver’s touch through their solid point of connection.

It’s comforting and lovely and somehow settling, and Laurie manages to get back into the story until suddenly Oliver starts a gentle caress, his middle finger grazing Laurie’s palm, slowly, up and down. There’s no rush to it; it’s simply a soft, steady touch. As if his hand is connected to his heart, Laurie’s pulse speeds up and his breathing follows.

His head firmly facing towards the stage, he shifts his weight and leans into Oliver, their shoulders almost touching, their knees pressing against each other in the smallest movement. Oliver continues his slow caress, all but making love to Laurie’s hand under the cover. The thought that they’re in a full theater, his family sitting next to them, is exhilarating. 

The beautiful voices on stage and the orchestra fill the theater but Laurie hears only Oliver’s labored breathing, as if he’s fighting to control his feelings, not to get lost in them. 

His fingers, in the meantime, explore Laurie’s hand, finger by finger, trace along every line, pressing their fingertips together, before gliding down, massaging his palm. 

Then Oliver’s hand wanders lower and his index finger finds Laurie’s pulse point on his wrist, a light, fluttering touch that makes Laurie gasp, a sound everyone could easily assign to the tragedy on stage but Oliver hears it for what it is and his whole body tenses next to Laurie and Laurie closes his eyes, wetting his lips and gripping the arm of the chair on his other side to not moan out loud. 

Oliver stops his caresses then, shifting in his seat and the spell is broken. But he doesn’t pull away. He moves his hand back to where it was in the beginning, clasping Laurie’s, who forces his breathing back to normal. 

**_1869 - March - Paris - Laurie_ **

Laurie dreads getting up and facing Oliver the next morning. 

During his sleepless night, he convinced himself that, having given in to his curiosity, he’s now utterly cured of any such leanings. What he’s pushed in the very back of his mind, though is that this conviction only came after he’d run back to his own room, pulled his pants down to his knees and put his own hand on himself. He hadn’t lasted even a minute. 

He doesn’t regard Oliver in any different light than before, it’s himself he’s disgusted by. The weakness of it all. Begging to be let in to another man’s bedroom in the middle of the night, asking him to perform such an act for him just so he could watch. 

Laurie’s stomach turns when he wanders down to the kitchen. What if Oliver is the one now repelled by him? What if he will keep his distance not because of his own shame, but because adding Laurie’s to his is now becoming unbearable?

“Ah, Laurie? Wasn’t it?” A young man greets Laurie in the dining room, sitting next to Oliver, both men looking well rested and in good spirits. 

Laurie is too startled to think of an easy retreat. 

“Nicholas. We’ve met at the New Year’s Eve party.” Laurie smiles politely, his glance flickering over to Oliver before he takes a seat, the glacial, blank stare chilling him.

“Call me Niki, please,” the man laughs and Laurie finds that he likes him and his open, friendly gaze, so different from the man sitting next to him.

When he’s halfway through his morning coffee, Laurie chances another glance at Oliver, who sits across from him, lounging in his chair as if he hadn’t a care in the world. 

Laurie is utterly confused. Not by Oliver’s apparent dismissal towards him but by his own disappointment in it. He had gone downstairs, prepared to face Oliver, deal with his own disgust, ready to meet that same disgust. What he hadn’t prepared for, is indifference. 

“You should come with us,” Nicholas exclaims and Laurie’s confused gaze travels to him, not having followed the conversation before. 

“I’m sure he has better things to do, Niki,” Oliver says, dismissing Laurie once again, and it’s a blunt hit against an already bruising spot.

“I have plans, unfortunately, but thank you,” Laurie addresses Nicholas, quickly taking the last gulp from his coffee, not trying to make up an excuse that Oliver has already made for him. 

“Oh, that’s too bad, I think we could be good friends, Laurie,” Nicholas laughs sincerely so Laurie smiles at him and wishes for another chance to befriend him. Maybe without Oliver there. 

“If you’ll excuse me for a moment,” Nicholas declares a moment later and Laurie feels his stomach drop as he realizes he’s about to be left alone with Oliver.

Silence falls between them as soon as Nicholas is gone.

Memories erupt unbidden in Laurie’s mind, like they so constantly do, appearing throughout the day, things he should never have witnessed and which now haunt him.

“Are you going to hold last night against me?” Oliver asks, struggling to open the soft boiled egg in front of him, not looking up.

“Of course not,” Laurie answers too swiftly.

“But you’re feeling sick about it, aren’t you?” He looks up now, a hint of uneasiness in his stare.

“I shouldn’t have asked you to do that for me,” Laurie whispers even though they’re alone. 

Laurie catches what seems like disappointment on Oliver’s face and feels even worse. It’s like being trapped in a heavy wind, strong enough to throw him around like a rag doll, limbs floppy and weak. Laurie doesn’t know what he thinks, or how he feels, or what he wants. 

“We can forget it ever happened, if it’s all the same to you,” Oliver declares casually and picks the little bits of shell out of his egg.

Laurie suspects his tone is masking how he really feels. 

“I don’t want to forget,” Laurie admits to himself as much as to Oliver and he frowns to himself.

“Laurie,” Oliver says and waits until their eyes meet. “I’m glad you came to me last night. I just dread the thought of having messed you up. I don’t want either of us to pay for what we did.”

“I’m not telling anyone,” Laurie rushes to say. “There won’t be any trouble.”

Oliver sighs. “I didn’t mean that. I-”

Oliver is interrupted when Nicholas walks back into the room and he closes his mouth, denying Laurie the rest of his thoughts on this subject. 

**_1869 - June - Paris - Laurie_ **

In early summer Aunt March welcomes a group of friends from England into her house in Paris and, as it’s fashionable, they all decide to take a trip to the countryside, claiming to do it for the fresh air and to feel the sun on their faces. In reality, it is to show off their new summer attire and to be seen in their carriages, to be brought to a spot where they would prop up chairs and picnic tables and dine cold meats and pastries. 

Oliver and Laurie tag along. The group is big enough to warrant four carriages, two open, perfect for parading; the other closed, to transport the furniture and just in case the weather doesn’t hold, so the women could be shielded from the rain. 

The two men take one of the closed carriages alone, stuffed with baskets of food and wine. The trip is silent but not uncomfortable and it’s probably the most surprising to Laurie that he actually enjoys Oliver’s company like this. 

He lets his eyes travel over the countryside passing them by, aware of Oliver’s presence beside. But he too seems relaxed, and so is the air between them. 

The day follows the same comfortable rhythm and after the meal, when the older guests rest in the shade, Oliver and Laurie excuse themselves to take a walk down the hill where they could follow the beaten path or break into the woods, tall trees giving the impression of stepping into another world. 

“Why did you-” Laurie starts when they’re a good distance away but immediately thinks better of it. 

“Why did I what?” Oliver asks him, walking by his side, a smile on his face Laurie could get used to seeing.

Laurie turns away so Oliver won’t see him. “Why did you hate me so when we were children?”

“Hate you?”

His tone is surprised but there’s a bit of something else too and Laurie’s heart sinks, knowing he is not half wrong. 

He pushes his hands in his pant pockets and turns off the path, stepping in between the trees, where immediately the sound is different, quieter, and the smell from the ground is rich and calming.

“Laurie, wait.”

He spins around, waiting until Oliver has caught up to him, and then he spits out: “You did, didn’t you?” He purses his lips then pulls them between his teeth. “What did I do that was so horrid that made you hate me? I wish I could remember.”

Oliver stops a few steps in front of him. “I didn’t hate you. I never hated you.”

“But?” Laurie prompts because he hears that there’s more.

Oliver meets his gaze and Laurie feels breathless, like he always feels when Oliver does that, pulling away the veil and looking at him directly, no wall between them. 

“I dreamed of kissing you. And that scared me.”

Laurie’s knees go weak and he takes a step back to find his balance again. “What?”  


There’s a sad look in Oliver’s eyes. “I wanted to be with you, Laurie. So to- rid myself of that feeling, I decided to keep my distance. I never wanted to hurt you Laurie. And I’m sorry that I did.”

“Did you?”

“Did I what?”

Laurie’s heart beats in his throat and he sucks at his bottom lip, nerves overtaking him. “Did you rid yourself of that feeling?”

The facade falls then, completely, and Laurie’s heart jumps. He feels like he always does, as if he’s being given a gift as Oliver chooses to take off his mask and reveal himself to Laurie.

Slowly, Oliver shakes his head.

Then, he takes a step forward.

Laurie raises his chin and stands his ground, feeling as if it’s somehow important that he doesn’t move until Oliver is right in front of him. 

He has to crane his neck to keep looking up to Oliver, to catch his eyes and follow their movement over his face, flicking between his eyes and his lips. 

Oliver raises a hand and then he places the tip of his index finger on Laurie’s lips. Laurie’s mouth opens on instinct, as if the touch is a secret code, and Oliver accepts the invitation, tracing along his lower lip. 

When he pulls away, Laurie follows it, whimpers in protest and that decides it, he can see the hunger in Oliver’s face. They both lean forward and Laurie feels another’s man’s lips on his and it’s both turning his world upside down and setting it right.

Their kiss is slow, almost careful, only their lips touching, nothing more, until Laurie opens his mouth just enough to let his tongue dart out, lets it touch Oliver’s lip and Oliver moans, the sound sending a jolt through Laurie. He stumbles back. 

His eyes widen in surprise, his head trying to wrap around not what just happened, but how it had made him feel. 

All those last weeks, his only thought was to know, to finally know what it would feel like to experience what Oliver had on the night of the ball. He’s been yearning for a taste of that same feeling, for that knowledge. 

Now their kiss had, instead of quenching that yearning, ignited a fire far more dangerous. 

“We should probably head back.” Oliver’s voice is carefully blank and Laurie wishes he had the words to clear the air between them, but his mind and heart are racing. 

He can feel Oliver’s studying gaze on him the entire walk back, can sense him think and worry but he doesn’t know how to put him at ease.

Laurie can still taste him on his tongue, is eager to commit it to memory.

They don’t speak when they reach the meadow, don’t speak as they help to pack up the picnic, don’t speak as they climb into their carriage, confined into a space where their knees touch every so often as the wheels hit a bump in the path.

Laurie tries to hide his turmoil, his beating heart, his hands itching to reach out and touch. He’s acutely aware of every move Oliver makes, of the way his chest rises and falls, of the sound of his lips parting, of his scent, his taste, something Laurie now had on his tongue and in his nose. He feels drunk on it, has consumed it all and now wants to store it away like precious water. 

His insides are coiled in so many knots. He can’t contain it any more, his knees are starting to bounce nervously and he loosens the top button of his shirt just so he can breathe. 

Laurie finds himself overwhelmed and aroused by the presence of the man in front of him. 

Once he lets himself have that thought, lets himself remember not just the images but his feelings of all the things he’s seen Oliver do and done with him, it crashes around him like waves against the shore.

He gasps, letting his legs fall apart. Oliver, who had caught Laurie opening his button out of the corner of his eye, now turns his gaze on Laurie openly, registering the spread legs, the flushed skin, the nervous grip of his hands on his knees.

Oliver, whose hands lie flat and broad on his own lap — those same hands that had looked so beautiful wrapped around his cock and now Laurie letshimself remember that, remember all of it; how hard he’d been, how much he’d wished to be able to touch Oliver, to be touched by him.

“Laurie,” Oliver warns, the word strained. His eyes are open, wanting, and there’s nothing standing between them any longer, no secrets, no restraints, no barriers. 

A heartbeat later and something snaps, Laurie can’t tell what it is, but one second they’re staring at each other, air thick between them, and the next Laurie moves and Oliver raises his arms to pull him in until Laurie is in his lap, legs on either side of his hips. Oliver’s hands bury themselves in Laurie’s hair and their mouths find each other easily. It’s messy and desperate and perfect. 

Lips pressed against each other, Laurie pushes his tongue in Oliver’s mouth, too eager, he knows, but he’s so desperate for the touch that he moans when his tongue finds Oliver’s and starts a simple caress. His hips are an extension of said tongue and he starts moving them too, their rhythms the same. 

Laurie hadn’t thought that kissing could be like this, could engulf him so fully, make his whole body tingle, make it ache. Make him rock against the person’s lap and make him want to plunge his tongue into their mouth until he can only taste them and nothing else. 

Their moans fill the carriage, a sound richer and more exhilarating than any Laurie’s ever heard.

Oliver’s hands expertly guide his face down so they can deepen the kiss, and then they stroke his neck, wander down his back. Laurie is half out of his mind when he finds the hem of Oliver’s shirt and rips it out of his pants, just to caress the skin underneath, marveling at the feeling, warm and inviting under his fingertips.

Oliver breaks away, grunting, throwing his head back against the seat. ”Oh god,” he moans, voice wrecked, his eyes dark, shining, the most mesmerizing thing Laurie’s ever seen.

The carriage stops and it takes them a moment to catch their breath and realize what’s just happened. Both men come to their senses and they spring apart, hastily rearranging their clothes and attempting to tame their hair.


	6. And I'll watch you touch me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted to express how happy I am that you're loving this little fic and this weird pairing! I love all your comments and kudos and that you're in love with Oliver and Laurie just as much as I am. Thank you!

**_1874 - December - Concord, MA - Laurie_ **

The journey back is infinitely more tense than their trip to the theater. 

Laurie examines Oliver’s every move, his every gaze, wondering what it might mean and if Laurie is supposed to react a certain way to show him that what happened in the theater is not unwanted. On the contrary, now that they’ve touched, Laurie can’t stop thinking about doing it again.

About kissing Oliver again. That thought alone makes Laurie’s heart stutter. He had seldom dared to hope he would be allowed to do that again. But Oliver’s barely contained heated glances in the dark carriage, illuminated by streetlights and the lights from the houses they’re passing by, only serve to rekindle that little spark of hope. 

In his mind, Laurie runs through the possibilities they could have to be alone. Should he ask Oliver to meet him in his bedroom? Slip him a note under his door? Ask for a meeting at midnight, the two of them, for a night of passion? 

Is this something Oliver would want? Or now that he had married a woman, had he forsworn any other needs to be with men? Were the caresses in the theater the beginning and the end of it? 

Had he been with other men all this time? Had he kissed and touched and loved them like he had Laurie?

Laurie averts his eyes and pushes past those thoughts, convincing himself that he neither has any right to nor does he even care to know. And that regardless of what was and what will be, he wants Oliver. Now. 

Back at his grandfather’s house, Jo and Amy both try to engage him in conversation about the opera but soon give up due to his lack of engagement.

“Excuse me, I’m afraid I’m tired today,” he makes up a lie and catches Oliver’s gaze as the rest of their company has accepts and lets him take his leave. 

He’s dismissed and soon finds himself in his room, contemplating what to do, how to let Oliver know that he wants what they had in the theater. All that and more. He wants whatever he can get and to hell with the pain that is unavoidably waiting for him at the end. 

But he doesn’t have to come up with a plan on his own as a knock on his door shakes him from his thoughts. 

Oliver is standing on the other side when Laurie opens it. His posture rigid, his eyes guarded, like his old self. But this time, Laurie can see right through him, can see the nervousness underneath. 

“Can I come in?”

Laurie steps to the side to let him in and closes the door, leaving them both in a room that is filled with their silence, charged with electricity, the static ready to flicker into a spark and then burst into a flame. 

In the candlelight in his room, Oliver looks flushed and his hair in disarray, as if he’d been combing through it with his hands. He looks nervous even.

“Laurie, what happened in the theater-. I’m overstepping and I know that I have no right to put you into a position like that by asking, but-”

“Yes,” Laurie blurts out, stopping Oliver from giving the same speech he had given when he had asked for an embrace. 

Oliver stops then and draws in a long shuddering breath, his eyes finally meeting Laurie’s. 

“Yes, Oliver, whatever you’re proposing, my answer is yes. No speeches. Please.” Laurie is proud of how strong his voice sounds even as his heart is threatening to leap out of his chest. 

“No speeches, hm?” Oliver teases lightly, his tone a mixture of amusement and excitement, and there’s relief there too, above all. 

“Please, kiss me, Oliver.”

The words kick something loose between them, something that had long been lodged tightly deep within them. They both take a few steps towards each other and sigh when their lips meet again, the memory and the reality exploding in a perfect sum. Laurie is lifted, wrapping his legs around Oliver’s hips, and then his back hits a wall and Oliver hungrily touches every sliver of skin he can reach and Laurie knows they’re not going to last long.

“I’ve missed this so much,” Oliver presses the words into the skin underneath Laurie’s collarbone and then bites it and immediately licks it to soothe that bite. Repeats that motion until he reaches Laurie’s bare nipple and closes his lips around it. Laurie fumbles for Oliver’s clothes, tearing desperately at them to remove all barriers keeping them apart. 

“Off, off,” he begs and then he’s moved and his back hits the bed, Oliver looming over him, removing his shirt, his eyes never leaving Laurie’s, as if blinking would be too great a risk, as if letting his eyes close at all might make all of this disappear. 

“Please, Oliver,” Laurie keeps begging, for what he doesn’t know but he relishes in the feeling of being able to say Oliver’s name like that, to put all his longing into it and let it pass his lips truthfully. 

They come together like two men starving, breathless and desperate, reaching for the other again the moment they pull away, exploring each other’s bodies as if to relearn every single inch of it. 

When Oliver enters him, Laurie cries out not with the physical pain but with the torment of having been denied this for so long that it hurts being given it again, as if Oliver is opening a door to the closed off room Laurie had been stuck in and even though freedom is lurking just on the other side, the light is hurting his eyes. 

When, through the haze of lust, Laurie dares to look, he catches Oliver’s eyes and sees the same _pleasurepain_ mirrored back at him. 

When he wakes, it’s to a gentle finger caressing his face and a solid warm weight by his side. Laurie blinks his eyes open and finds moonlight illuminating Oliver who is sitting fully clothed on the bed, a forlorn look on his face. 

“Oliver,” Laurie whispers, looking up but otherwise not moving. 

“I wish I could spend my nights looking at your face.”

A knot builds in Laurie’s stomach, fear entering his heart. The sadness on Oliver’s face is almost too much to bear. Laurie wants to tell him that he can, that they can be discreet, they can have this. Better than having nothing at all.

“Don’t leave,” he says instead, and more pain flashes across Oliver’s face. 

His hand keeps up the caress, the finger following the line of Laurie’s cheekbones and then his nose, then down to his lips. He lingers there, the tip of the finger requesting entrance, and Laurie opens his mouth enough to let his tongue dart out, in turn greeting the intruder. 

Oliver sighs and pulls back. “The children have a habit of waking up in the middle of the night and crawling into my bed,” he explains quietly. “I can’t have them wander into my room and not find me there.”

Laurie almost wants to propose that he comes with him but then his mind catches up and he stays silent. There’s nothing he can say or do to keep Oliver here and the realization carves at his heart. This is it then. Oliver is stealing out of his bedroom in the middle of the night and Laurie can’t even be angry. 

A thumb rubs over his forehead, Oliver trying to smooth out the frown.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers and Laurie understands that he means more than tonight. 

“Me too.”

“I will forever regret having hurt you so much, Laurie. But selfishly, I can’t regret not staying away. Having you in my life makes it a life worth living.”

Laurie takes a deep breath, trying to calm his fluttering heart. He doesn’t know how to meet so much raw honesty, a confession this big, so he puts his hand on Oliver’s and presses it against his cheek, putting everything he’s feeling into the gaze that meets Oliver’s eyes. 

Oliver bends down and places a soft, lingering kiss on Laurie’s lips. And then he pulls away fully, getting up. Laurie feels cold immediately.

He listens to the click of the closing door and then the receding footsteps. Sun comes up on the horizon when he’s finally able to fall back asleep.

~ooo~

Laurie arrives at the breakfast table at the March house very late, the children already having finished their food, now playing by the fireplace. Only Oliver, Jo, Amy and Fred remain, still eating.

Oliver looks up when Laurie enters, something passing over his face that is not quite a smile and not quite a frown, before he looks away and back to his son who’s sitting in his chair, the telltale signs of baby food stuck on his tiny little fingers. 

Laurie fixes his eyes on little Robert and tries to push the pain of regret and longing deep enough inside where no one can see him bruise. He lingers only a moment in the doorway, getting better already at pretending, at hiding. 

“Oh, Laurie, you must accompany us to the ball this Friday!” Amy exclaims the second she spots him and doesn’t stop speaking until he sits beside Jo, reminding him of how she was when they were younger, talking so fast she would stumble over her words, just like Jo sometimes did. 

“Jo’s not coming, but Meg will be there, and Fred of course and Oliver, too, so you must come as well!”

“What ball?” he asks, his eyes traveling through the room for answers, but Oliver doesn’t look at him anymore and Jo just shrugs, her head going right back into the book that’s resting on the table next to her plate. 

“You’re going to be regular party folk by this rate,” Marmee laughs, bouncing a gurgling Olivia on her hip. “It’s the annual winter ball over by the Johnson’s. Martha, their youngest daughter, has started the tradition up again. The decorations are beautiful — the whole town is going to be there.” 

“I-” Laurie turns his head towards Oliver again, eyes lingering until he looks up and Laurie doesn’t know what exactly it is he’s waiting for, but then Oliver does look up and Laurie is incapable of reading anything on his face.

“It sounds like fun, don’t you think?” he says and finally smiles and Laurie finds that smile forced and is slightly satisfied that he isn’t the only one still affected by what happened between them last night. 

“You have to say yes, Laurie. Because Meg told me you were an amazing dancer and back in Paris I never got to dance with you.”

Laurie laughs at Amy’s words. “Oh then we have to right that wrong, don’t we?” 

“Yes!” Amy exclaims and reaches for her daughter, taking her into her arms, showering her face with little kisses. “Yes, did you hear him? He’s going to come dancing with your mother,” she tells her baby, rubbing her little nose with her own.

“That young man looks ready for a bath,” Marmee says and bends down to Robert who squeaks happily at her. 

“I can take him,” Oliver tells his mother and stands. 

“I’d like to help if you’ll allow your old mother that joy?” 

Oliver nods and Laurie watches them both, Oliver and his mother, and how careful they are with each other. He’s painfully reminded of himself and his grandfather and his heart aches knowing where the distance comes from.

And then he realizes that just like with his mother, Oliver and Laurie also are separated in a similar way, even though there’s nothing but love on either side. 

Laurie picks listlessly at his food when everyone but Jo has left, going off to wash or cloth or entertain a child, and he no longer has to keep up a front. Jo looks up from her book, closes it deliberately as she realizes that they’re alone, and leans forward.

“I have been thinking,” she announces triumphantly. 

“Oh?” Laurie raises his eyebrows and instantly earns a punch to his shoulder.

“Oh hush, Laurie. I have a proposal for you.” 

“Tell me, then.”

“Come to work at my school.”

Laurie sputters.

“I mean it, Laurie. You know a great deal about art and the school is big enough to make a beautiful home for you and we could be together all the time and you’d be closer to Amy and Meg and Marmee, too.”

“I- I don’t know,” Laurie says but the excitement on Jo’s face affects him and the idea doesn’t seem too mad. “Me? A teacher?”

“Oh, you’d be wonderful, I know it! You’re patient and funny and the children would appreciate someone young.” She puts a hand on his arm, shaking it while she lists all the things that should convince Laurie. 

“You wouldn’t be so far away, anymore, and you wouldn’t be lonely. And then I only have to convince Oliver to be the new history teacher, and wouldn’t that be grand?”

As she grins, Laurie’s smile fades.

He looks down at his food, suddenly unable to look her in the face. He knows what she’s trying to do. And he’s torn; her meddling a sign of so much love towards him, but she doesn’t know Oliver, not like he does. “Jo, please,” he whispers. 

“No, Laurie, you listen to me.” She shakes his arm again until he looks up to meet her eyes. The playfulness is gone, but the enthusiasm is still there. 

“Promise me, you’ll think about it? I truly believe you would be a great art teacher, Laurie. And the money won’t be good and you would have to share the house but I believe you’d be ten times happier than you are in New York right now. And if Oliver will stay with the children, it would be even better, and if not, we can be old spinsters together.”

Laurie laughs despite himself. “I don’t need your money, Jo,” he says by way of answering. 

“You won’t regret it, I promise!” Jo jumps up then, pressing a kiss to Laurie’s head in her excitement. 

**_1874 - December - Concord, MA - Jo_ **

Later that day, when even Laurie has wandered off and Jo finds herself alone in her mother’s kitchen, Amy walks in, a determined look on her face as she approaches Jo. 

“Is everything alright?” Jo asks her sister, putting down the mug of tea she just made herself. 

“I- I think Oliver and Laurie are having a fight. They have been tense ever since Laurie arrived and I know you’ve been sensing it too — don’t tell me you don’t.”

Jo’s heart jumps in her chest and she must be barely hiding it because her sister sees her expression and her eyes narrow. 

“Ha! I knew there was something!” She steps closer, her finger pointing at her sister. “What is it, Jo? Tell me at once!”

Jo shakes her head, thinking she has already revealed too much. 

“Jo! I demand it! What’s with Laurie and Oliver? Did something happen between them? Did they have a falling out? Do they hate each other?”

Jo blushes at the last words and her sister doesn’t miss that either. 

“They do not hate each other,” Jo says in a low voice, defeated. “Very much to the contrary.”

Amy draws in a sharp breath at that, her hands flying up to cover her mouth and stifle a gasp. “You do not make fun of these things, Josephine March!” she presses underneath her hands. 

“I would never,” Jo promises. “Not about Oliver. Not about Laurie.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am sure.”

“But how? How do you know? Did Laurie confide in you?”

“You promise not to tell? Not to breathe a word to anyone?” She reaches for her sister’s hands. 

“I promise,” Amy says. 

Jo lets go of her sister then and paces the floor, worrying her dress with one hand and her chin with the other. 

“Do you remember after Beth’s death, when Oliver gave us his gifts from Paris?”

“Yes.” Amy presses a hand to her heart where the pendent rests underneath her dress.

“I went into his room and looked at the box,” Jo confesses, pressing her lips together to await her sister’s chastising but all she gets is a gesture urging her to speak.

“I was so curious as to what he had brought us and I was angry and hurt and I shouldn’t have done it and-”

“By God, dear Jo, what did you see?”

“I saw your necklace and my pen and all the other things. And there was a pocket watch with an engraving on the back. It said ‘with great admiration, in deepest devotion’.”

“And?”

“And I thought at first it was the gift for Beth even though it was an odd gift, but then later I found out that he had bought her sheet music before she died. And then I thought it must have been intended for Catherine but I never saw her wear it.”

She pauses for dramatic effect, Amy hanging on her every word. 

“And then I saw who has that watch, Amy.”

“I swear to god, sister, spill it out already!”

“Laurie has it! He has been wearing it ever since. He still has it now.”

“Oh my god.”

“You can’t tell anyone.”

“Of course not! Meg can’t know, she wouldn’t understand. I guess Marmee would understand and love him just the same but best we keep it from her too.”

Amy pauses then, once again folding her fingers over her mouth. Her sudden sobs fill the room a second later. 

“Oh, oh, Amy.” Jo pulls her sister into a fierce hug, remembering the weight of the knowledge once she had understood, and how it had crushed her at first. Thinking about their big brother and their best friend and how miserable they must have been.

“What do we do, Jo? We have to do something! Oliver can not get remarried to another woman!”

“He won’t. I won’t let that happen. Not a second time.” Her voice shakes from conviction and pain in equal measure. 

Amy pulls out of the embrace and catches her eyes.

“What do you mean?” she asks, eyes huge and reddened. 

Jo feels her own tears well up in her eyes. 

“Jo, what do you mean?” Amy shakes her as if she could just shake the words right out of her. 

“It’s my fault he married Catherine!” the words break out of her like an ancient truth she had been harboring inside herself for centuries. 

“How could it be your fault?”

“I convinced him to marry a woman.”

“Jo, you’re not making much sense!”

“He told me. When we were children, when I was ten, he confessed to me that he was worried he would never be able to love a woman and I was so scared for him, Amy!” She presses a hand to her mouth, smothering a sob. “I was just a kid, but I was so scared of what it could mean for him and for me and our family. So I told him to try. To try his best and then he would find love eventually.”

Amy stills and Jo watches the same pain she’s feeling cross over her sister’s face. 

“We won’t let it happen again,” she whispers, her voice now mirroring Jo’s conviction. 

**_1869 - July - Paris - Laurie_ **

A few days after the trip to the country, Laurie accompanies Oliver to the library. He had mentioned it at the breakfast table that morning, casually asked if Laurie wanted to come, not even meeting his eyes and it made Laurie uneasy but also eager to say yes. 

They hadn’t talked after what happened between them. Oliver had been absent as if in fact nothing happened at all which left Laurie so vulnerable and nervous, that he didn’t even try to find Oliver and bring it up. 

Shame hadn’t come this time. Instead, dread and confusion and a sense of excitement as if Laurie stood on the brink of finding out something monumental about himself which was at once good and bad. He felt as if he was peeking at some great truth about himself, as if he was getting a glimpse of something wonderful to gain as well as everything that he could lose.

But he’d agreed to go with Oliver.

They walk the whole way, making idle conversation, discussing Haydn and Shakespeare, and Laurie looks for hidden clues under the words but doesn’t find anything. 

His heart sinks more and more. 

Had that been all? Had Oliver gotten what he wanted from Laurie and moved on? Had Oliver just wanted to have that kiss and now that he had, was completely satisfied? Did it not mean anything to Oliver? And what had Laurie wanted it to mean to him?

When they enter the old building, the librarian greets Oliver like an old friend, asking him about a book he’d gotten for him, and he mentions another to arrive in just two weeks' time, directly ordered from a German friend. 

Now that they’re inside and Oliver’s focus shifts to the list in his hand, three titles neatly written down, which he instantly goes to seek out, not even asking the librarian for directions, Laurie realizes that he hasn’t even thought about what he’d do once they arrived. 

He watches Oliver vanish between the shelves of the history section and while his whole body aches and wants to follow after him, Laurie instead turns to find the music section, determined to lose himself between pages of notes until Oliver would remember his presence and seek him out. 

It doesn’t work. 

Oliver is across the library but somehow he’s also everywhere. In Laurie’s thoughts, yes, but also where his fingertips touch the cover of a retrospective on Bach or in the smell of a collection of notes on chamber music. 

So in the end it’s Laurie seeking Oliver out, finding him at the very end of one of the shelves, a book opened in his hand, looking so occupied that Laurie’s step falters and his determination fades. 

Oliver notices him coming though, and looks up, a small smile on his face.

More than Laurie had gotten the last few days. 

“You are ignoring me again,” Laurie states, his voice just loud enough that Oliver can hear him. He sounds petulant and he hates himself for it but he can’t do anything to change it. 

Oliver sighs. “We can’t speak about these things. Not here,” he whispers.

Laurie nods and stops in his steps. “I shouldn’t have come, then.”

“Laurie.” 

He closes the distance between them, comes to stand just before Laurie. With a careful look around, he seems to be making sure no one else is close enough to see or hear them. Then Oliver looks at him and his hand grasps Laurie’s.

“Why are you keeping your distance from me, Oliver?” Laurie whispers, his words rushed. “If you’re not- interested, please say so, so I can save what is left of my dignity. If I was merely a- a conquest, I would prefer you’d tell me so I know where I stand with you.” Laurie feels his cheeks burning, his words being so open and frank but he squares his shoulders and juts out his jaw and then he looks up at Oliver.

Something like relief washes over Oliver’s face. As if he hadn’t been sure how Laurie felt. “You’re not a conquest, Laurie. You could never be just that. But for you-,” he hesitates, as if searching for the right words. “For you, this might all be fun and games, as it should be. But for me, it’s something else, something I haven’t quite figured out yet.”

He bends his head lower. “I would kiss you if I could,” Oliver whispers, and all of Laurie’s anger and disappointment melt away under those words.

Oliver’s fingers dance over the back of Laurie’s hand, making him shiver. 

“I wanted to give you space. To-, to think about what we’ve done.”

Laurie grinds his teeth. “Promise me that you’ll never again decide for me when I need my space? I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions.”

A smile breaks over Oliver’s face. He nods. “I promise.”

“I’d like for you to kiss me if we could,” Laurie whispers and a rush of adrenaline goes through his entire body, the words awakening something inside him. It’s the first time he’s said anything like it, given words to what he’s feeling. 

Oliver’s face goes slack at his words and he takes a deep breath, once again scanning their surroundings. Having found no one approaching, he bends down, his lips touching Laurie’s ear as he speaks. 

“I’ve dreamed about your lips and the taste of your tongue, Laurie.”

Laurie sighs and closes his eyes, swaying on his feet. When he opens them again to meet Oliver’s, he’s looked at with such a pleased smile, Laurie feels his cheeks flush. 

“Found everything alright?” comes a voice from behind them and Laurie freezes. Oliver’s reaction is quick and smooth and he steps forward, shielding Laurie effectively.

“As always. You have truly the best collection.”

Laurie follows behind and watches Oliver wave with the book still in his hand. 

“Your order will arrive in two days,” says the librarian, his curious eyes flickering between Oliver and Laurie, no sign he’d seen anything other than two gentleman looking at books. 

“Thank you so very much, Richard. I shall see you then.”

They bid their goodbyes and make to exit the building, following a long hallway that goes off the public library entrance and leads to offices in a tucked away corner of the building. 

Laurie is not surprised that Oliver knows his way around here so well. 

“What are you doing?” he hisses, when Oliver stops to rattle on one of the doorknobs. The door doesn’t give. 

“You’ll see,” is the flippant answer presented with a mischievous smile and Laurie’s heart jumps. 

The second door Oliver tries does open. 

It’s a storage room, from what Laurie can see, boxes and boxes of books stacked on top of each other. 

“Come here,” Oliver whispers and he looks around again, but they’re all alone in here, so Oliver pulls on Laurie’s hand and they slip into the room, grinning at each other like teenagers as the door closes and leaves them secluded. And safe. 

Their kiss is not rushed. Laurie knows it’s coming and he reaches for Oliver like he did in the carriage but this time their lips meet in a soft touch. There’s no deadline here, no set ending, and they can take their time. 

Oliver’s hands slide around Laurie’s neck, his long fingers spreading around his jaw, tilting his head up like he’s seeking the perfect angle to fully taste Laurie’s lips. 

Laurie lets himself be moved, eager and pliant and surprised how quickly the taste of Oliver had become his favorite. 

When Oliver’s tongue demands entry, Laurie grants it eagerly, opening his mouth to let Oliver in and meeting his tongue with his own. He shudders at the sound and the feeling of Oliver’s low moan.

They kiss for a long time. They kiss until Laurie’s body responds and their breaths get heavy and hands clutch tighter and moans get louder. 

“We better go,” Oliver whispers into the space between their lips that is there just for one breath, only to be eliminated by yet another meeting of lips. 

“Yes, we should,” Laurie agrees when they part for air, only to dive in once more and claim Oliver’s mouth with his own.


	7. And I'll watch you say goodbye

**_1869 - August - Paris - Laurie_ **

“I can feel you watching me,” Oliver says without looking up from his book; he’s smiling to himself, his cheeks turning a lovely shade of pink. 

“I like watching you work. Am I distracting you?” Laurie asks and puts all the innocence he can muster into his words. 

It’s a warm late summer day and promising to be a thickly sweet night, one where they’ll keep all the windows open to let the cool air in. One where Oliver and Laurie will sleep with only a bed sheet wrapped around them. 

Laurie had been spending most nights in Oliver’s bed since the day at the library. Had been anxious and nervous at first until they’d found exactly how they fit together. He’s long since accepted that he’ll have a hard time unlearning the comfort of Oliver’s body next to him. 

“I will have to inform you that you are indeed distracting, my dear Laurie.” Oliver glances over and dares to bring his hand to Laurie’s face and brush his fingers underneath his jaw. 

They’re not alone in the park even for a later afternoon, but far away from groups of families and other Parisians who had brought blankets and food and little games with them to sit in the grass and let the time pass. 

Oliver pulls his hand away and Laurie misses the touch instantly. 

He studies Oliver further, can find nothing more interesting than to follow the bow of his lips or the curve of his nose or the span of his eyelashes and how they fan out over his cheeks when he blinks. Laurie brought his own books to have something to do while Oliver is deep in his studies but all those lie long forgotten in the grass. 

Laurie feels a changed man. Feels grown and matured and different to who he once was yet more himself than he’d ever been. 

The last weeks with Oliver had passed like they were nothing and yet felt as if time stood still and Laurie and Oliver could spend forever in it. They’d been going slow. As if now that Oliver was assured of Laurie’s affection he wanted to take his time and to properly court him. 

A few times, Laurie had tried asking or pushing for more, curious about what lay beyond their kisses and their naked bodies rubbing against one another, curious how it would feel to do what the man at the ball had done to Oliver, or to have it done to him. Or to find out if there was even more they could do. Be together like men are with women. 

But every time either his nerves or Oliver’s slow caresses had stopped him. 

Slow. 

Laurie basks in the idea of slowness, of letting time pass like a current and letting himself be swept away by it, holding tightly onto Oliver’s. Sometimes the hours spent together would be a slow pace, or no movement at all, but Laurie can’t help but think there’s a strong undercurrent waiting for them unless either one of them lets go. 

Today, it seems as if nothing can sour their moods. Oliver manages to get some work done and even Laurie finds his way back to his notes, smiling to himself whenever Oliver would interrupt him to read aloud a passage from his book and he would lean over and brush against his leg or his shoulder with his hand and it would make Laurie’s heart swell. 

When the sun finally goes down and both men can no longer ignore their growling stomachs, they make their way to one of the restaurants by the Seine with the tables directly by the water. They meet up with Nicholas there and three other people Laurie remembers seeing in passing. 

“This is Marie,” Nicholas introduces them, “she’s my cousin. And that’s her friend Sophie-Louise.” Laurie greets two small women with lovely faces and even friendlier smiles and then he turns to the third one, a man who couldn’t be older than Laurie but who had an air of agelessness about him. 

“And this beautiful man here is Matteo.” The man greets Oliver with a blush on his face and Laurie is irritated for a moment and feels guilty when he’s relieved that Oliver answers the greeting politely but not overly friendly.

Their group finds their seats at the far end of the tables where they are away from the other guests and soon laughter fills the space and Laurie finds himself enjoying the company and the food and the wine and seeing Oliver’s face light up with laughter, knowing it was him who Laurie would pull close tonight and his heartbeat that he would fall asleep to. 

They talk about Oliver’s studies and Nicholas shares anecdotes from his travels. Then Marie, who reminds Laurie a bit of Amy, and who’s clearly the one between the two women who doesn’t fear speaking up in a group of men, stands up and reenacts a childhood story that has Nicholas hiding his face behind Matteo in an exaggerated display of shame. 

“I’ll have you know, Niki,” Oliver says at one point and puts his hands on both of Laurie’s shoulders pulling him close, “that Laurie knows everything there is to know about Haydn and Bach and he could run circles around you.” 

Laurie blushes profusely, at once ashamed and proud of Oliver’s praise, but Nicholas nods as if he’s impressed, as if his friend’s word is enough to convince him. 

“Here’s to Laurie, then,” he says and raises a glass and everyone follows in on the toast.

It’s been hours and they start to talk about leaving soon, when Laurie notices Nicholas’ hand resting on Matteo’s thigh under the table when, in his attempt to tell a story, Laurie accidentally knocks a knife to the floor and has to crouch down to pick it up. 

He freezes for a moment, collecting himself before he gets back up. When he looks around, there are more things he notices. Like how Matteo’s eyes flicker down to Nicholas’ lips whenever the man speaks. Or like Sophie who had moved her chair so close to Marie that their shoulders were constantly pressed together. 

Laurie’s gaze finds Oliver’s who is sitting casually leaning against a wall behind him but having positioned his feet in a way that would brush against Laurie’s whenever either of them moved. 

Aided by the wine, Oliver’s gaze is curious, carefree. And heated. 

Laurie understands now why it’s these friends of Oliver’s he’d wanted Laurie to meet. 

He reaches out his hand and Oliver doesn’t hesitate to grasp it and hold it in his. 

Laurie’s heart is suddenly beating in his throat. 

They leave the restaurant soon after. Instead of taking a carriage home, the group decides on a walk through empty Paris, which, now shortly after midnight, had most citizens and tourists already home, so it is just them roaming the silent streets and peeking into shop windows or walking up to old statues and making faces at them. 

Laurie is well aware that he had too much to drink as soon as they’re walking, the warm summer air now damp and sweet. But he doesn’t find that he cares much, not when Oliver, who’s in a similar state, grabs him by his hand and swings him around, alternating between pulling him and skipping down the street. Laurie can’t help but laugh at their antics.

The two of them start singing an old song they had first learned from Marmee, but Nicholas and Marie seem to know it so they join in, their singing off and likely terrible but they’re laughing and dancing through the streets. Laurie feels like a child again, just for a moment, just enough to enjoy the weight he is so used to lying on his chest being gone.

Oliver and Nicholas start chasing each other and Laurie hangs back, trying to catch his breath but his eyes are on Oliver, who’s laughing, head thrown back and eyes closed and Laurie stops walking altogether then, something sobering running through him. 

“Are you okay, Laurie?” Sophie reaches him, linking her arm through Laurie’s to make him walk with her.

“I- yes. Yes.”

“Boys are being silly, that will never change,” she states, chuckling. “You looked sad for a moment.”

Laurie blinks at her. “I have never seen him laugh like that,” he says, not even thinking about trying to lie. It is true and it hurts his heart. Not even in his memories from their shared childhood does he remember Oliver looking so carefree.

Her face clouds for a moment. “He does so, sometimes,” she tells him. “More so now that you are here.”

Laurie can’t help his face heating up although he suspects that Oliver’s friends know about Oliver and already put two and two together now with Laurie being there. 

More laughter interrupts them and they both turn to watch Marie chasing after Oliver, her skirt lifted so she can run without tripping and Laurie notices Nicholas walking arm in arm with Matteo just like Laurie and Sophie are doing. 

His gaze travels back to Oliver, who wraps Marie in a hug as soon as she reaches him and he’s still laughing, his face ten years younger. 

“You love him, don’t you?” Sophie pulls Laurie out of his thoughts and he finds her smiling at him.

Love him?

Laurie’s heart drops at the thought. He had never thought about it. Had never stopped long enough to ponder the word he’d been so afraid of ever since he’d asked Jo to marry him. 

Love him?

Laurie nods jerkily as the knowledge floods his body like cold water through his veins.

Sophie pulls him close. “I think he feels the same,” she whispers to him. 

“Laurie, come with me,” Oliver begs as he approaches them and Laurie is being let go easily, as if being transferred from one to the other, smiling at Oliver’s gaze on him. 

He’s engulfed in his arms almost immediately and Laurie looks around, fearful for a moment, but there’s no one around but them and it sends an excited shiver through him, to be able to embrace Oliver like this out in the open. 

Laurie cranes his neck to look up at Oliver and finds a fine sheen of sweat on his skin from running around and color on his cheeks, just visible under the streetlights. 

And he finds an open, loving gaze that’s directed at Laurie, one he has seen before, at night, when it was only the two of them. 

“You’re so beautiful,” Oliver says, cupping Laurie’s cheek. “I’ve always thought that. How beautiful you are.”

Loving him. Laurie rubs against the hand still on his cheek. Yes, he loves him. Probably has for quite some time. He loves the guarded Oliver, the one who lived in a mask and whose glances often felt like ice. And the soft Oliver, who would let his mask slip, who’s interested in what Laurie thinks and wants. The Oliver who enjoys kissing Laurie for hours. And this Oliver right in front of him, the completely unguarded one, the one that is free.

Laurie raises his hand and ruffles it through Oliver’s hair, laughing at the crinkle between Oliver’s eyebrows appearing. 

Then Laurie’s hand wanders down and caresses Oliver’s cheek, finding its way to his chin so he can graze his thumb over Oliver’s lip. 

Oliver opens his mouth and his expression turns, calling back the heated glances he’d given Laurie at the dinner table and his eyes fall on Laurie’s lips.

The others are already a distance away but Laurie wouldn’t even mind them seeing them like this. All he has eyes for, all he can see, is Oliver. 

They stumble together as if not just drunk on alcohol but each other, not able to take their eyes off each other until Oliver’s back hits a wall and Laurie pushes closer, sealing his lips over Oliver’s and he swallows a delicious moan from Oliver’s mouth, instantly lost in the kiss.

Oliver’s arms are all around him, caressing his back until they come to rest around his neck, pulling him infinitely closer and Laurie rises on his tiptoes to meet Oliver’s kiss and his whole body presses up against him. 

Nothing is like kissing Oliver. Nothing so soothing and inciting of desire at the same time, nothing so grounding and making him feel like he’s floating on air. 

“Come on, we need to keep going!” comes Marie’s shout from far away, and only when she shouts again, do they part.

Oliver blinks several times as if coming out of a haze and then his mouth turns into a happy smile, his teeth showing, and Laurie kisses him once more for good measure. Then reaches for his hand, not letting go until they reach the house. 

**_1869 - October - Paris - Laurie_ **

The letter arrives on a Thursday in early autumn.

It’s noon when Laurie walks downstairs to see what’s left in the kitchen for him to eat. A storm rages outside, tree branches whipping against the windows in the hall, rain thrumming against the glass.

He’s in the middle of stealing some bread and the remainder of a chicken leg for himself, ready to hide out in the drawing room and work on his opera, Oliver nowhere to be seen, when Aunt March summons him. 

Her room is dark, smelling of stale air and a sickbed. He’s surprised to find her in one of the chairs by the window as if she had been watching the rain. 

“You wanted to see me?” he asks her, not two steps into the room. The sooner he’s allowed to leave, the better. 

Aunt March doesn’t turn around.

“Elizabeth has died.”

Laurie’s mind stops. His hands turn cold in an instant and there’s a sharp pain in his neck but he doesn’t yet grasp why he’s feeling like this, his head not processing the words as fast as his body does. 

“What?”

“Your beloved Josephine wrote to inform us, or rather Oliver, of their sister’s passing. The letter arrived this morning.”

_Oliver._

When there’s no reaction from Laurie, Aunt March does turn around, only to find the boy ashen and frozen to the spot. 

“I believe you will accompany Oliver home?” she asks, her face not revealing her feelings about that prospect.

“Yes, yes, of course,” Laurie hurries to say, his mind still trying to catch up. 

“Where’s Oliver?” he dares to ask.

“He went out when he learned the news.”

“Out?” Laurie shouts, thinking of the ghastly weather, startling them both.

He doesn’t hear what Aunt March responds, his legs already carrying him down the hall. Before he can think anything of it, he grabs his coat and steps into the raging storm, cold rain immediately biting into his skin. 

He finds him by the stream at the north end of the property, the part that is not visible from the house. Laurie makes his way through the small woods, his body drenched and his feet muddy. He’d been looking in the stables first and then the garden; the stream was the last place he’d thought of where Oliver could be without taking one of the horses with him.

Laurie stops when he sees him by the water and rests his hands on his knees to catch his breath. When he walks closer, he finds Oliver’s feet submerged in water, the stream reaching up to his knees. 

“Oliver,” Laurie calls out to him, his voice barely carrying over the wind.

Oliver’s head whips around, eyes wide in surprise. 

Laurie steps as close as he dares, the rain relentlessly lashing his body and Oliver’s, the wind tugging at them, either to pull them apart or push them both into the water. 

“What are you doing out here?”

Oliver turns away from him, his face to the sky. Even if there were any tears on his cheeks, Laurie wouldn’t see them from the rain washing everything away.

“She spent her last days by the water,” Oliver explains. “Jo had brought her to the sea but there is no sea here. Just this stream. I wanted to feel close to her.”

Laurie pulls in a deep breath, his eyes not leaving his friend. His heart aching, for himself and for Oliver.

“I should have been with her,” Oliver says, voice broken, laced with pain. “I should have been home with my sister and helped somehow. Not off to Europe to fulfill my own dreams. I should have helped her.”

“Oliver.” Laurie reaches out then, pulls one of Oliver’s hands into his, those normally strong fingers weak now in his grasp. “You can help now. You can be there for them now.”

Laurie feels a shiver in his body that either comes from himself or that travels through Oliver’s body and into him. 

Never had he seen such pain in someone’s eyes and he vows to do anything in his power to make it better.

“Your sisters need you now, Oliver. Jo and Amy and Meg need you to come home and be there now.”

Something shifts in Oliver and he looks down on himself, his wet clothes and his feet in the cold water. Their joined hands. He grabs onto the hand that had been holding his and carefully climbs to solid ground. 

The whole way back to the house, neither of them lets go.

~ooo~

They travel for days, sometimes with nothing more than two sentences between them. Instead, they let their bodies speak, not in passion, but in comfort; in light touches, in shoulders pressed together on long carriage rides, in heads falling asleep on the other’s lap. And at nights, before separating into their bedrooms, in hands clasped together and other times, in silent but strong embraces.

Laurie longs for the days he’s spent in the same bed as Oliver. Those days had seemed never-ending, an infinite number just before them, even though Laurie had known it wouldn’t last. But they can’t be together like this on their travels. Too many curious eyes that would notice two men leaving from the same bedroom. 

Still, sometimes, when Laurie forgets the reason why they are traveling, he finds himself enjoying this time with Oliver, this quiet companionship. 

And then he remembers with every passing day what is waiting for them at home and he thinks of an empty stool by the piano and a fresh gravestone, thinks of Jo’s grief-stricken face. Thinks of a dinner table that doesn’t look quite right. Thinks of a fresh-faced girl waiting to welcome home her soon to be husband. 

Laurie feels like crying then, or like he’ll be sick, but he pushes those thoughts away and instead looks at Oliver’s face, usually turned towards the window, blank and almost cold but Laurie knows better, knows by the softness in his eyes when they do meet his and by the warmth of Oliver’s hand in his own. 

They’re still another half day of traveling out from Jo and Marmee and Laurie’s grandfather and both men have grown quieter and more tense by the minute. It’s almost sundown when they arrive at the last hotel on their journey and Laurie wanders to Oliver’s room to go down for a meal. But he isn’t there and he isn’t in the sitting room and Laurie grows worried immediately, even asks the old man by the door. 

“Went along that road, probably in the restaurant at the end there. The house with the blue shutters,” the man explains and points Laurie the way.

Laurie does find Oliver there. 

He’s sitting by himself at a table by the window and his stare makes Laurie’s heart ache for him, seemingly so empty, so far away, as if his soul had traveled back in time.

Something pushes Laurie’s feet forward and he makes his way up to Oliver’s table. Laurie counts to ten in his head until Oliver notices him and looks up.

“I’d like to join you for dinner. Unless of course, you would rather be alone?” Laurie braces himself for the answer.

Oliver doesn’t reply at first, instead, he’s studying Laurie as if he’s trying desperately to fight his way back.

“No, please stay, Laurie,” he says, and gives him a small, tired smile.

Laurie takes the seat next to him and they wait until they have placed their order for food until they speak again. 

“They don’t know about Catherine yet,” Oliver starts and his eyes don’t rise to meet Laurie’s. “Or that we will be married in a few months. A winter wedding.”

Laurie takes a long, deep breath, and collects himself before reacting to the words that push a knife so deep inside his chest he’s convinced he’ll see blood seeping through his shirt. They had never talked about her. Or about after. Oliver had never mentioned her name and had always made sure to read her letters where Laurie couldn’t see him and then put them away so Laurie wouldn’t accidentally stumble upon them. 

Laurie clears his throat. “Why did you keep it a secret from them?”

Oliver does look up at that, likely picking up on the tremor in Laurie’s voice. “I have four-” he stops as if someone had hit him. “I have three sisters, Laurie. And mother and father would give the shirt off their backs to help where they can. I don’t want my sisters to marry in loveless marriages just to keep the family afloat. So it is on me to-”

Open-mouthed, Laurie stares at Oliver. Never before had Oliver spoken to him about it, about his choice to marry Catherine. About any of it. And Laurie wonders if it is too painful for him or if he is ashamed. And then Laurie wonders if Oliver had ever realized that their roles are reversed. That when Laurie’s grandfather dies, Laurie will be left with an obscene amount of money and no family at all. 

Laurie nods. “You don’t need to explain.”

“You deserve an explanation,” Oliver whispers and the waiter is saving Laurie from having to respond. 

His mind is racing but no thought stays long enough that Laurie could grasp it.

“Laurie,” Oliver says, making the thoughts stop. “I am so sorry. I have been so selfish in my grief that I didn’t even realize.”

Laurie frowns. “Realize what?”

“That you have lost a sister just as much as I have.”

Laurie swallows against a dry throat and he blinks away the tears forming in his eyes. He hates that they’re in public and that he can’t just reach out and grasp Oliver’s hand and squeeze it in reassurance, can’t give comfort which they both are so desperately in need of.

“Drink with me,” Oliver says when the empty plates are removed and more wine is placed before them. His cheeks are glowing, his smile both manic and painful, a smile that is guarding the door to a fortress keeping in a wound that had festered and grown ever since they first kissed, knowing it would end like it’s ending now.

Laurie smiles slowly and nods. “Okay.”

They have one night left and then they have to face their families. And Oliver’s fiancée would join them and soon there’d be a big wedding and Laurie would be expected to not only attend but also laugh and smile and dance and wish the happy couple a long and happy marriage.

Oliver drinks his wine, then orders something stronger, and soon they’re in deep conversation, enjoying the alcohol and each other’s company. Laurie feels himself hanging onto Oliver’s every word. 

The tension rises throughout the night until neither of them can pretend or wish it away. Gazes linger, and hands graze hands, staying there until the spell is momentarily broken, and they pull apart only to fall back under that same spell minutes later.

They haven’t done any more than shared kisses ever since they left Paris, but at the end of the night it’s all Laurie can think about. 

They leave the establishment and walk back to their lodging. In the cover of the night they walk close enough that their fingers touch, almost as if they were holding one another. 

In the hallway, standing in front of their respective rooms, they stop, gazes interlocked. Laurie wants to ask but he doesn’t find the words or the courage to speak them, so he loses hope, already has his hands on his doorknob.

He watches Oliver’s face fall at that gesture and realizes that just like him, Oliver is too afraid to ask.

In a surge of sudden confidence, he lets go of his door and steps towards Oliver. 

Oliver’s cheeks color and his eyes widen. But he opens his door and waits until Laurie has stepped through it. 

He turns towards Oliver once he hears the door shut behind him, heart in his throat. 

Oliver hesitates too, the nerves showing in his fingers tapping away on his hips. 

Now that they’re here, Laurie is unsure what to do. It’s their last night together, the last night before they’d step into reality and have to part ways for good. 

“I want you, Oliver,” Laurie finally speaks the words out loud and watches Oliver’s mouth fall open. 

When Oliver doesn’t move, boldness is all Laurie has left and he starts undressing, his movements slow and deliberate. He watches Oliver watching him until he’s standing before him naked, like a present or an offering, nervous he could possibly be denied. 

The last piece of clothing falls to the floor and Laurie’s arms rest against his side. 

Oliver finally moves. 

His eyes locked with Laurie’s, he steps forward until he comes to stand right in front of him. And then, two gentle hands are cradling Laurie’s face and he’s pulled close until their mouths meet. Laurie sighs into the kiss, having missed it so much he wants to crawl inside him. It’s a heady feeling, to be kissed so thoroughly, to be desired so deeply. 

And then, suddenly, Oliver’s mouth is missing from Laurie’s and he wants to protest until he looks down and finds Oliver kneeling before him, looking up, lips less than a breath away from Laurie’s hard cock. 

There’s a question in Oliver’s eyes and Laurie replies with his hand caressing Oliver’s face and finding something to hold onto in his hair, gripping the soft strands. 

Feeling Oliver’s lips around him, taking him inside his mouth is nothing at all like Laurie had imagined. He realizes, as his breath comes in short bursts and pleasure bites at his insides that’s so on the edge of pleasure that it’s close to pain, that nothing could have prepared him for this feeling and this sight. He cries out too soon, his release shooting into Oliver’s mouth as tears roll down his cheeks and shaking hands cling to Oliver’s hair. Laurie would be embarrassed if he had any power left to think, but then Oliver stands back up and kisses him so deeply that Laurie melts into his arms. He has never known love and comfort like this. 

The second time is slower. Oliver lets Laurie undress him, lets him explore his body with his lips and his hands, just as Laurie had dreamed about for weeks now He had never quite been allowed to, had to instead picture in detail in his mind, sometimes in the middle of the day and sometimes at night, with his own hands mimicking on his body what he had dreamed of doing with Oliver’s.

The third time is in the early morning and it’s laced with pain and tears and yet Laurie doesn’t remember ever being this happy or this whole with his hands on Oliver and Oliver’s arms around him, their naked bodies grinding together, sweat and come and spit and nothing else between them. 

**_1863 - April - Concord, MA - Laurie_ **

At 16 years old, on a cold spring day, Laurie wanders over to the March house in a good mood, a full week without lectures before him. In his mind he’s already planning out the days, performing theatrics with Jo and the others, taking long walks through the woods. At the end of the week, his grandfather promised to take him to the opera. 

When he arrives though, he sees the family outside, gathered around a carriage, their faces solemn. 

“Teddy!” Jo shouts and is in his arm in a second, distraught, eyes wet.

“What’s happening?” he asks her, looking around. 

Amy is crying too, as is Beth, and both Meg and Marmee are clinging to each other. Then Laurie watches Oliver carry two bags to the carriage, leaving them both inside. 

“Oliver is leaving for Paris!” Jo sobs against his shoulder. 

“Paris?” Laurie can’t place what he’s feeling, the hollow pull in his gut, his heart beating heavily in his chest.

“We thought he’d go after the summer, but he’s leaving now and I can’t bear the thought.”

“When will he be back?” he asks Jo, still processing the news. 

Jo cries harder. “We don’t know. He will study there for a few years at least.”

“Years?” Laurie asks, alarmed. 

He pulls Jo into a fierce hug and prescribes his dread to feeling empathy for the sisters and for Marmee, as they watch Oliver leave them. Laurie looks on in silence, as Oliver packs up his things, stony-faced, and then starts saying goodbye to his sisters one by one, hugging each of them long and tightly, exchanging words Laurie can’t hear. 

Soon, he walks over to Jo and Laurie releases his embrace to hand her over into Oliver’s arms. 

He watches them hug so desperately, that he averts his eyes so as not to intrude in a moment so private and full of emotion.

When they part, Jo steps back and Meg who has come over to them, pulls her in, slinging an arm around her sister and placing her chin on Jo’s shoulder, both girls comforting each other. 

Which leaves Laurie on his own, standing before Oliver, and suddenly he’s self-conscious and almost nervous. 

Oliver had more or less ignored him the last months, had shown nothing but disdain. 

But now he looks at Laurie differently, his eyes sad and distraught and he’s looking at Laurie directly, something Laurie had almost forgotten how it feels. 

“Have a safe trip,” Laurie croaks, unsure what to say to him. 

Oliver nods and he seems as if he’s holding something back, as if he wanted to say more but decides against it. 

“Please watch over my sisters,” he says instead and Laurie nods jerkily. 

“Of course.”

As Oliver turns and makes his way over to the carriage, Laurie’s whole body aches with the urge to run to him and embrace him one more time before he leaves. But Laurie doesn’t. All he does is stand by himself, breathing through a sudden, inexplicable pain.


	8. And I'll watch you leave

**_1869 - November - Concord, MA - Jo_ **

“They’re here,” Amy says, and Jo startles, having been so wrapped up in her book she didn’t notice Amy getting up. She walks over to the window and her heart jumps as she sees the carriage, and then two men stepping out. 

Amy reaches for her hand, standing by her side, and Jo feels as if a hundred years have passed; she doesn’t even recognize the men slowly walking towards the house. 

Marmee appears behind Jo and glances outside before she walks over to let them into the house.

Cold November air comes through the door and Jo crosses her arms over her chest to keep from shivering. 

“Oh, Oliver!” Marmee doesn’t wait for him to step into the house but runs outside to wrap her oldest in a tight hug, and Jo has to look away when she sees her mother’s shoulders tremble in sobs. 

“Laurie!” Amy exclaims beside her and runs into Laurie’s arms, the two hugging just as fiercely. 

Jo feels tears prickle in her eyes. She’s never felt this alone in her life.

“Jo.” Laurie’s voice is somber but friendly when he approaches her, coming to stand before her with his hands clasped behind his back. 

“You’ve grown so much,” Jo says, her words choked up. But she sees Laurie smiling at that and whatever unease had been between them is suddenly and completely broken. 

He surges forward and pulls her into his arms. They’re holding one another so tightly as if it could heal all those months of not talking. 

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers and Jo nods against his neck. 

“My dear Jo,” Oliver’s voice pulls her away from Laurie and they step apart, Laurie eyeing Oliver with a look she can’t quite place, something that makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She watches Oliver’s answering look, and something passes between them, not hostile, not angry at all, but some private communication that Jo doesn’t understand. 

But then she comes to stand before Oliver, her brother, whom she hadn’t seen in years. 

“You have grown so much,” Oliver says in wonder, and he doesn’t know he’s repeating the words she’d spoken to Laurie. 

Jo falls into his arms and is reminded of their father’s embrace, all-engulfing, making her feel safe and protected. 

“I’ve missed you so much,” she muffles into his shoulder and Oliver grabs her tighter. 

When Jo opens her eyes, still not ready to let her brother go, she catches Laurie’s gaze on them and he looks stricken. Jo’s stomach twists, fearful that their relationship is forever altered and that Laurie might still be in love with her. 

The sun drifts lower in the sky and more people arrive.

Jo watches her father embrace Oliver when he arrives with Meg, husband and children close behind her, and she tears up when Oliver, who’s meeting the children for the first time, gets to his knees on the floor and plays with them for an hour, his face ten years younger and joyful like she remembers him being so rarely in their youth. 

Their mood is solemn and carefully cheerful, happy to be back together but still aware of what had brought them all here in the first place. 

Jo joins them for the visit to Beth’s grave, Meg and even Amy staying behind to help Marmee and Hannah in the kitchen. So it’s just Jo, her father, Oliver, and Laurie, who take the short walk from their house. 

Laurie stays by her side the whole time, not holding her hand like they used to. But when they are close and Jo can spot the shiny gravestone among the older withered ones, she is the one to reach out and grab his hand. 

He responds in kind, squeezing their joined fingers, his eyes fixed on the sight before them. 

Neither of them keeps a dry eye at Beth’s grave. Jo leans against Laurie, grateful that he’s still here, still her friend, her brother. She keeps thinking back to the letter she’d placed in their little post box in the woods, which she’d taken back out just a few days before the boys had arrived. 

It had been the right decision. Here, now, her head on his shoulder and his arm pressing her to his side, she knows that nothing would replace this friendship they have. 

They make their way back in complete silence, she and Laurie walking ahead, her father and Oliver behind them. 

Later that evening, all of them spending time in the sitting room, Jo’s mood takes a turn for the worse.

Oliver had started to tell Amy about a gift he’d bought for her in Paris, hinting he’d brought all of them gifts and that he would be giving them the following day when he felt rested, when he suddenly announces that he’d be meeting with his fiancée the next day. 

A sudden silence takes over the room before it explodes into cheer and well wishes. 

Jo feels a sickness in her stomach she can’t quite place and she watches her mother’s subdued reaction that only strikes her as odd when she lies awake that night. But now they all get up from where they’d been sitting, one by one, hugging Oliver and congratulating him, and when it’s Jo’s turn she does her best to be happy for him and not think about how she will lose him so quickly after just having gotten him back. 

She’s too wired to idly sit and read her book with the others after, and when she discovers that Laurie had somehow vanished without her noticing, she feels herself slip into a funk she doesn’t dare subject her family to.

She leaves them all in the sitting room, set on going upstairs and being alone for a while, when she passes the room Oliver would sleep in and where he had placed his bags.

She stops, spotting a small box next to them, she now remembers secured on top of his bag, wondering if their gifts are in it.

She knows she shouldn’t do it, should just wait until he is ready to give them their presents himself. But she’s irritated and angry, something in her gut churning, the look between Oliver and Laurie not leaving the back of her mind, seeming like a dreadful omen.

She closes the door behind herself and hurries over to the small wooden box. 

Pain pulls at her heart as she touches it, the frame sturdy but the outside delicately ornamented. Oliver had always had a sense for the beautiful, the sensual. Jo is convinced all the presents are in there, carefully collected over months of his travel.

The box isn’t locked. It opens with a soft click and the lid falls back and reveals the carefully packed contents, wrapped in beautiful cloths and tissues. 

Carefully, Jo reaches inside, her fingers grazing against something cool and metal. 

It’s a pendant, delicate and stunning, the form of a drop of water, little figures carved into the metal. Amy, Jo thinks and knows it’s perfect. 

Underneath is a pair of gloves, soft leather, in a blush color, clearly designated for Meg.

Jo sits back when she finds what Oliver brought her and clasps her hand over her mouth, smothering the sob that’s breaking out of her.

It is a fountain pen, expensive and well crafted, and breathtakingly beautiful. Jo cradles it in her hand, the weight of it between her fingers breaking her heart.

Swiftly, she puts it back, wiping the tears off her cheeks. 

She has the lid closed when she realizes she hasn’t seen what he had bought for Beth, if he even had something for her or if he had kept it somewhere else, now that Beth is gone.

She opens the box back up and shuffles through, deliberately ignoring the pen and the guilt attached to it. 

She finds a pocket watch at the bottom, folded into a soft, mud-colored cloth. It has a strong, golden chain and almost minimal decorations on the lid. 

Jo is puzzled, wondering about the choice of gift. She opens it up and finds a beautiful dark clock face, softly ticking away. There’s an engraving on the back, freshly done, still a stark contrast against the color of the lid. ‘With great admiration, in deep devotion’, Jo reads. 

It’s not for Beth, Jo thinks, the thought somehow chilling. His fiancée then. Must be. No other way. Even though there’s something sad about it, a sense of sorrow clinging to the watch that Jo can’t quite place or doesn’t know if she’s the one attaching it to the watch.

Jo puts everything back, swiftly, not managing to be as careful as she should be, as she hears footsteps approaching.

The door opens and Oliver steps into the room, immediately spotting her on the floor, the box closed but clearly moved. 

“Jo?” he asks carefully. “What are you doing?”

Being caught, Jo wipes the last of her tears off her face and says nothing, just looks at her brother closing the door, and sitting down in front of her on the floor. 

“I’ve missed you so much, Jo.” Oliver reaches for her hand and covers it with both of his, tilting his head as if trying to see something behind her tears.

“I can’t bear the thought of you leaving me here in this house, Oliver. I will lose you just when I have gotten you back.”

Oliver chuckles as if she’s being silly. “You’ll never lose me, no matter where I am, you hear me, Jo?” 

She smiles weakly at him, scooting closer so she can lean her head against his shoulder but her chest hurts as she realizes that she might have lost him a long time ago, might not even have had him in her life much at all. She wonders if Oliver even ever noticed.

**_1874 - December - Concord, MA - Laurie_ **

“You promised to dance with me,” Amy says, her voice stern, never having been good at hiding if she was feeling disappointed. 

Laurie takes her in, beautiful in her gown and with her hair up in a simple knot that makes her look poised and ladylike and that reminds Laurie how much Amy had changed and learned to walk among the richest of them, never wanting to be doubted she didn’t belong. 

“We danced,” Laurie clips and knows he sounds like a petulant child, but he can’t help it. 

“Two dances.”

“I’m not in the mood anymore.”

“Because you’re drunk.”

Laurie doesn’t answer, instead takes a sip of the wine he’s holding in his hand. He fixes his gaze back on the crowd of people — men in well-fitting suits and women in their best gowns, darker blues and blacks dominating the room — and Laurie is reminded of all the dull parties he had attended in Paris.

The decorations are beautiful, Laurie has to admit, tasteful and elegant, but the music and the chatter and the affected, fake laughs are just the same as everywhere else. 

And in the midst of it is Oliver. 

The night had started well enough and their group had left under much laughter, both Meg and Amy enjoying the festivities they had loved in their youths and the preparation that came with it. 

Fred had not been able to join. He’d been called out on business and was expected to return only the day before Christmas. So Oliver had sat next to Laurie in the carriage, their legs touching every now and then, but Oliver had that blank and icy look on his face; Laurie had felt like he was speaking to a wall whenever he tried to engage him in a conversation.

It had started then and had only gotten worse as the night went on.

They had arrived and made their way through the crowd, greeting old neighbors, and introducing themselves to new ones. They had danced, the four of them, and Laurie had loved the feeling of it, of dancing beside Oliver and watching him laugh, almost as they had done back in Paris. 

Then they had switched partners, Laurie dancing with a young girl who was shy and quiet and then an older lady who kept missing the steps but enjoyed the dance anyway. He hadn’t minded until he found Oliver doing dance after dance with the same girl. 

And Laurie had instantly known what was happening. 

“Let me sit,” Amy says and pushes Laurie’s legs off the chaise he’s been half lying on, so he is forced to sit up fully when Amy sinks down next to him. 

She sighs and puts enough disappointment into that sigh that she doesn’t need any words. 

Laurie suspects that she watches for a moment exactly what Laurie had been watching for a while now. 

Oliver, dancing. 

He’s so tall that he’s easily spotted in the crowd. Laurie loves and hates the smile on his face and the gaze that is solely focused on his dance partner. 

“Are you going to mope all night?” Amy asks.

“Likely.”

“Is that all you’re going to say?”

“Short answers save trouble.”

“Laurie,” Amy sighs and he turns to her and finds an expression on her face that has now more concern than anger. 

“Five years ago I would have told you that you’re pathetic and sad and better act in a way you could be respected.”

Laurie can’t help but laugh softly. “Ah, so you’re not saying that? What are you saying now, then?”

She purses her lips as if she’s collecting her words properly before speaking. “Today I know what love is and can only imagine what it would feel like to lose it. Or not be able to have it in the first place.”

Laurie wonders if it’s the alcohol in his body that plays with his senses but he repeats her words in his head a second time and can’t find any other meaning in them. 

“You know?” he asks, voice quiet. His heart beating in his chest, his body suddenly feeling both cold and hot at the same time. He looks at Amy, but can’t read enough on her face to see if he had already lost her. She had been fine in the carriage ride. Surely, she must have pretended then?

“I suspected and made Jo tell me. Please don’t be cross with her.”

Laurie nods. “Are you disappointed in me?” he asks, wanting the answer now, wanting all the disgust and disappointment, however much there is, to come out now, make a clean slate, put everything on the table so Laurie doesn’t spend his time wondering when the moment will hit, when he will look over to Amy and will see her frown over at him, mouth twisting.

Amy shakes her head. “I could never be disappointed in you for who you are, Laurie, I love you too much for that. And I feel sorry for you, I really do.”

“But you wish I’d wear it better?”

She smiles a sad smile. “I wish you wouldn’t hurt as much as I see you hurt, now that I look.”

Laurie has to turn away then, suddenly hit by intense emotion and he fears he will break out in tears in a room full of strangers and will look like a drunken, lovesick fool. 

“Have you talked to him, Laurie?”

“There’s not much to talk about. He is looking for a new wife, someone who will raise his children while he keeps working so he can provide for his family.”

“Laurie.” She touches his elbow and makes him turn back around to her. “But have you talked? Have you told him any of how you feel?”

“It’s no use.”

“Laurie.”

“Amy, please, I’m asking you to stop this.”

She opens her mouth to speak but is given no chance to reply as they hear laughter over the music and turn to find Oliver holding the hands of the woman he’d been dancing with, both of them laughing.

Laurie stands up, swaying at the sudden rush in his head. He puts his glass on the side table and takes the first tentative steps towards the door. 

“Laurie, what are you doing?” Amy asks, rushing after him. 

“Leaving.”

“You can’t take the carriage just yet, Meg and Oliver-”

“I’m walking.”

Amy grabs him by the arm. “You will not.”

“Let me go, Amy,” Laurie says and pulls his arm free, their commotion earning some glances from the people around them.

Amy purses her lips but does as she’s told.

“Have a good night,” Laurie wishes her with a crooked smile, and then he gets his coat and steps outside.

~ooo~

The cold air hits Laurie, the alcohol in his system suddenly hitting him too. Part of him feels foolish as he wades through the thick snow into the darkness but the part in him that is angry and hurt is stronger.

“Laurie, wait!”

Laurie startles at the sound of his name being shouted, startles further when he turns and it’s Oliver running after him, slipping into his coat midrun. Amy must have alerted him to Laurie leaving. 

Stubbornly, Laurie keeps walking. 

“Laurie!” Oliver reaches him after a short run, his breath fogging the air as he slows. “Don’t be foolish, come back inside. You can’t walk home, it’s too cold!”

“I can manage just fine,” Laurie mumbles and looks straight ahead as he puts one foot in front of the other, determined and too upset to give in.

“Please, Laurie,” Oliver continues and keeps up the pace.

The sounds from the party are already dimming into the distance and the only noise remaining is the snow crunching under their feet.

“You don’t need to follow me.”

“You’re drunk and you’re walking home in the cold, I will not leave you alone until you’re safe in your bed.” 

Laurie looks to Oliver then, can barely make out his face in the dark. He’s rarely sounded so angry before. 

“It’s not my bed I want,” Laurie says because he can, under the disguise of anger and wine, both making him bolder. And a bit cruel.

“Laurie, I-”

“I don’t want to hear it.” His words are like gunshots in the night, and he hopes they’re hurting Oliver half as much as Oliver is hurting him.

They have never talked like that, never even argued. Laurie can’t stop the bitter laugh when he remembers Amy’s words and how she had pleaded for him to talk to Oliver. Was this what she’d had in mind?

And then he thinks about Oliver, stoic, determined Oliver, who keeps the pace without saying another word but stays by Laurie’s side. What would he say if he knew about Jo and Amy? About what they knew or suspected about their brother?

Even in his anger, Laurie decides not to tell him. 

So they walk all the way to Laurie’s house, not speaking a word, only their breaths fogging out in front of them. Laurie’s pride stops him from admitting it, but halfway home his feet start to hurt from the cold and his fingers are numb even though he keeps them buried in his coat pocket.

When they arrive, Laurie’s teeth are clattering and he’s seen Oliver send him a meaningful gaze twice already.

“Thh- thank you for accompanying me,” Laurie says, his eyes downcast, and he tries to push past Oliver towards his bedroom where he plans on burying himself under the covers until his body stops shivering, but he is instantly stopped from doing so by a hand around his wrist. 

“You will come with me,” Oliver says, peeling himself out of his overcoat. 

“I told you, I can-”

“This is not a request, Laurie, but an order. You need a hot bath lest you want to wake up with pneumonia tomorrow. And for god’s sake keep your voice down, the children are asleep.”

Laurie is too stunned to do anything but following Oliver up to his bedroom and then to the bathroom that sits across from it. He’s standing uselessly to the side, reigning in his shaking body to no avail as he watches Oliver place a bucket of hot water over the fire someone had already stoked in anticipation of their return. 

An old, copper tub is placed in the middle of the room and soon enough Oliver empties the first bucket of hot water in there, quickly putting a second on the fire.

They don’t talk. Oliver stands by the fire as if his presence will make the water boil faster. Laurie’s alcohol-muddled brain switches from shame to anger to longing to regret back to anger so swiftly that he swears his head is going to fall off. 

“Please get out of your clothes, Laurie,” Oliver interrupts his musings.

Laurie does not move, by now resisting only to see how far he can take this, how far he can push Oliver until he breaks. 

He guesses he doesn’t have to wait long now. 

Oliver’s voice dips into anger when he sees Laurie still motionless. “You’d rather I didn’t care about what happened to you and left you for dead out in the cold?”

“I’d rather you didn’t seek me out the other night if you were just going to ignore me for the rest of the days!” Laurie spits and resists the urge to cross his arms over his chest. 

Laurie had hoped to get a rise out of him, but what he gets instead is Oliver walking over to him, lips pressed into a thin line, and then he crouches down and starts untying Laurie’s boots.

He can’t help it as his whole body trembles as Oliver undresses him, taking off the damp clothes swiftly and expertly. 

“Get in the bath.”

Like a child knowing to have lost but too prideful to give in, Laurie juts out his chin and shakes his head. 

He wants to stew in his anger, wallow in it, as if only now will he have the freedom to do so. When he isn’t being reasonable. When he isn’t expected to remember that he had known all along that he has no right to Oliver or his kindness or his love. 

“Laurie, please.”

He almost cracks then, when Oliver’s voice dips into something different than anger, when he starts pleading with him.

“Make me, then,” Laurie whispers, a shiver that has nothing to do with the cold running through him. 

Then words have left him completely as Oliver comes to stand before him, fully clothed, the warmth from the fire and from his body that always seemed to be warm, like it had been in that shed so many summers ago, seeping into his naked skin. Laurie sways on his feet as if the warmth is calling out to him, pulling him in. 

Oliver doesn’t speak either, is probably over the fighting, but looks down at Laurie, whose body is aching from the cold and the shaking.

“Ahh.” Laurie gasps as he is suddenly lifted off the ground. Oliver had put his arms around him and, as if his body has its own mind, Laurie wraps his own arms around his neck just as his legs circle Oliver’s waist.

The friction against his naked body instantly arouses him. 

He’s moved through the room but he barely notices it with his face buried in Oliver’s neck and with his hips rubbing desperately and without shame against the man holding him. 

“Please, please,” he murmurs and presses his lips against the spot behind Oliver’s ear. 

And yet, without any reaction from Oliver, he’s gently, but sternly, let down into the bathtub, the warm water biting his skin and making him hiss.

The pain is welcome though, clearing his head and masking the pain that is in his heart from Oliver’s cruel disinterest. 

Laurie feels naked now more than he had when he stood before Oliver and his eyes follow him as he brings a bucket of more warm water and slowly empties it over Laurie’s head. 

“You’re not gonna do anything with me?” Laurie asks, when Oliver stands up, finished with his task, and Laurie doesn’t care about how hurt he sounds, how vile his tone is. 

Oliver doesn’t answer, doesn’t even look at him. 

“This is it then?” Laurie spits. “You got what you wanted from me, I warmed your bed to hold you over until you find another wife?”

Laurie regrets the words the instant they spill over his lips and he watches Oliver still, his back to him, his shoulders pulling up. 

Then Oliver turns.

Laurie waits for him to speak but he doesn’t. Yet there’s so much on his face that Laurie thinks he’s saying more than he had the whole night. There’s pain there and shock, the mask missing from its usual spot and instead a raw Oliver is standing before him, his brows furrowed as if he can’t believe the vile words coming out of Laurie’s mouth. 

“I can’t do this again,” Laurie confesses, both to himself and to Oliver. “I spent my whole life watching you. Watching you live yours. Without me in it. I can’t do that a single day longer.”

Oliver’s breathing is heavy. Anger and sorrow like twin brothers both apparent on his face.

“Touch me, Oliver, please,” he begs, blatantly, but Oliver simply shakes his head and it’s like a slap in the face, to be denied so outright. 

The earth tilts on its axis and Laurie goes down with it. 

He lets his hand travel down his body, finding his cock that is eagerly awaiting his touch. Greedily, he watches Oliver’s eyes track that motion.

“You want to watch me, then?”

Oliver’s eyes widen and somehow Laurie takes it as encouragement, stroking himself and letting the first bouts of pleasure rush through his body. 

He’s warm now, the water coming up to his shins so with every stroke his fist hits the water, the noise loud in the room where otherwise Oliver is silent, frozen to the spot. 

“Ah, ah, ah,” Laurie moans, twisting his hand just as he likes it, fighting against his eyes falling shut. He wants to see himself, wants to see Oliver watching him, the hungry eyes he can’t fully manage to hide. 

Laurie doesn’t hold back with the noises he makes, his moans and gasps falling off his lips as he’s pleasuring himself, his hips meeting every stroke. Oliver’s eyes on him are like fingernails running over his skin, making him shiver and setting every nerve ending on fire. 

He’s too close too soon and he desperately wants to stretch this moment, something that feels like punishment for them both, or like he’s showing Oliver who he really is, the deep dark truth: a desperate man in love who’s not above begging for the affection of another. 

“Did you wonder how many others have touched me like this?” he asks, his eyes seeking Oliver’s as he’s nearing his peak. “How many men have been where you’ve been? Have fucked me like you have?”

Laurie gets the reaction he wanted, the shiver in Oliver’s body, and the shifting of his feet as if he is desperate to keep rooted to his spot while his body wants something different. Laurie lets his eyes drift down to the telltale signs of Oliver’s own arousal.

“None,” Laurie gasps, thrusting into his hand, feeling his orgasm coil in his groin. “No other man, Oliver, just you, always you. And my own hand mimicking what you had done to me, wishing it was you.”

Laurie’s whole body seizes as he comes and he throws back his head, his hand rough and relentless until the last drop is pressed out of him and his breathing slows.

His gaze finds Oliver’s again and he’s hit with unbearable sadness.

“Oliver, please,” Laurie tries again. “Stop trying to protect me from you.”

Oliver smiles then, broken and sad. “You think me a much better man than I am,” he says and with that, he turns, stumbling over his feet as if what Laurie had done had shaken him off balance.

It takes Oliver closing the door gently behind himself that Laurie realizes something. 

That it wasn’t just Laurie that Oliver was trying to protect. But his own fragile heart.


	9. And I'll watch you break

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this beautiful banner was done by [PeachyPerfect](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomssweetheart/pseuds/PeachyPerfect)

**_1870 - January - Concord, MA - Laurie_ **

The night before the wedding, Laurie had left the March house early. Had said goodbye to Oliver and the others and gone back to his grandfather’s house and hidden in his room for hours. 

He’d sat through a painful dinner with Oliver and his parents and his sisters and Oliver’s soon to be wife, had smiled politely and engaged in conversation as was expected of him, and had kept up his head to appear happy for him.

The charade had left him exhausted, not from this day, but also from the last weeks he had spent back in his grandfather’s home, under his scrutiny and back under the care of the March family. Christmas had come and gone. Laurie had slowly found his way back to a caring friendship with Jo, but he still held back, not sure how much to bear of his soul without giving away the things that had found a home in his heart during the last year. 

Oliver and he had barely spent time alone, stealing moments when they could, which were far and few in between, with his family overjoyed to have him back, and with the holidays and the preparations for the wedding keeping him busy and in company at all times. 

It’s midnight when Laurie can’t stand it anymore, his body coiled with tension, his heart hurting so much he’s afraid it will break out of his chest. 

He leaves the house in utter silence, not bringing a light, knowing his way around from sneaking off countless times before. The air is rich and moist and Laurie hovers at the edge of the property, his body urging him to move, to just walk, walk, walk until he’s left everything behind. 

Then he sees the light on at the March home, a faint candlelight next to where Laurie knows is Jo’s bedroom.

Oliver.

Frozen in the moment, the night, the edge between the whole world changing, Laurie simply wants. To not think, to make bad decisions and do what his heart and his body ask of him, ignoring how his mind tries to intervene and tell him to stay away, to know his place.

He doesn’t let his mind win.

Laurie makes the way across the damp grass, the light in Oliver’s window guiding him like a lighthouse showing the way. But he’s more like sailors at the sea listening to the siren’s song, following a light that doesn’t lead to safe shore, yet they follow it anyway.

Laurie’s steps are sure, even knowing he will eventually shatter against the cliffs.

He stops when he’s close enough to see in the window and make out Oliver’s profile.

He doesn’t have to wait long for Oliver to look out and to see him even though it shouldn’t be possible, not in the darkness of the night. But the moon is high and full in the sky, peeking through the clouds at just the right time, like a spotlight on Laurie, presenting him as raw and bare as he is.

Oliver stands, leaning closer to the window.

Then he steps away and for a moment Laurie is sure the candlelight will vanish and he will be dismissed like he had been when he was 15, desperate to make the neighbor’s boy like him.

But the front door opens and Oliver fills out the full frame of it, a dark figure in a dark background, and yet Laurie sees his face, sees his eyes and knows it was right to come. 

They don’t speak when Oliver closes the door and reaches for Laurie’s hand, leading him up the stairs, both avoiding the spots on the stairs they know make noise when stepped on. 

They don’t talk until Laurie is in Oliver’s room and Oliver closes the door, turning around, shadows dancing on his face from the candlelight. 

And even then, no words pass their lips. 

Instead Oliver steps in front of Laurie, only stops when he’s so close Laurie can see the storm raging in his eyes, the same storm that’s raging inside him.

Laurie realizes that it’s an invitation. Oliver is meeting him halfway and no further, offering him the final decision.

So he makes it.

He closes the distance between them, not to kiss but to sling his arms around his neck and feel his hands on his back, pulling him in. To have Oliver’s face against his neck, his nose tickling the spot behind his ear. To pull his own body up against Oliver’s, have them rub against each other, every inch of him tingling like a magnet, having found its match. 

Embracing Oliver feels like coming home, like being whole, and Laurie clings on tighter when he remembers that this might very well be the last time he gets to be with him and to be who he is with him.

Oliver puts both hands on Laurie’s face and makes him look up, the first hint of a smile on his lips.

“Can I kiss you?” Oliver whispers. 

“Yes, please.”

And they do, Laurie sinking into the kiss, Oliver’s lips igniting something that sings through Laurie like an ancient song he’s only just learning, but having heard it now, remembering every word of it. 

Sorrow mixes into the kiss, and grief, both of them meeting each other in a first and last embrace. 

They feel it, sitting atop their skin when they undress, every piece of clothing removed carefully and slowly, until they stand before each other naked and honest, before Oliver lays Laurie out on the bed and worships every inch of him. Explores, with his hands and his lips and his tongue, until Laurie is wild with envy, wanting the same access, so he flips them, lets his own hands caress Oliver’s body until they’re entangled and one. 

Oliver enters Laurie with their eyes locked in wonderment and desire and they both try to be silent, to have this moment between them without a sound breaching the four walls that keep them safe for now. 

They make love in utter silence. 

It’s Oliver who reaches his orgasm first and Laurie watches him make faces, the sight adding to his own arousal, knowing that he has that power over Oliver, and then Oliver pulls out and comes over Laurie’s chest because he had asked to and Laurie had nodded his head. 

Laurie follows soon after, with Oliver’s hand on his cock and his tongue against his, Oliver’s body a welcoming weight on him, rutting against him until Laurie bites his lip to keep from shouting out loud and he manages only a gasp when Oliver’s lips graze his ear and he whispers “Come for me, Laurie. Come for me.”

They fall asleep after, only to wake up an hour later, their faces turned towards each other, looking at the other as if to memorize every peak and valley of their face, every freckle, every line.

They don’t talk much, whispering little words, their fingers mapping out each other’s faces, sliding over cheekbones and lips together. Time doesn’t pass the way it usually does, instead stretches endlessly in front of them and Laurie pretends that they can stay like this forever and he tries not to blink, not to close his eyes and miss even a second looking at Oliver, until he can’t fight it anymore and falls asleep.

~ooo~

Laurie wakes with pain in his heart. There’s no moment of merciful forgetting, he wakes and instantly knows where he is and the day that is waiting for him.

He doesn’t move at first, trying to take in his surroundings by sound only, and he finds Oliver no longer in his bed with him, but sitting at the foot of the bed on the floor. He blinks his eyes open and sees Oliver’s back, slumped and defeated, turned towards him. 

Laurie inches forward until he’s close enough to let his fingers brush through Oliver’s hair and Oliver startles and then sighs and lets his head fall back into the touch.

“Did you sleep at all?” Laurie asks him, knowing the answer. 

Oliver shakes his head.

“What have you there?” Laurie hunches forward, spotting something in Oliver’s hand, something he’s flipping over and over but it’s so small that it vanishes between his fingers so Laurie can’t see it fully.

Oliver finally turns and Laurie’s not ready to see his face, can’t bear to meet Oliver’s eyes and see his own pain mirrored in them. 

“I meant to give this to you. For weeks now. Never had the courage.”

“What is it?”

Oliver places the object in Laurie’s hands, holding on for a moment, his fingers caressing Laurie’s wrist. Then he pulls back. 

The object is a pocket watch, a golden chain attached to it, and it fits in Laurie’s palm, warm against his skin, warmed up by Oliver cradling it for who knows how long. It’s heavy somehow, heavier than the weight of it, and Laurie hesitates opening it up. 

He looks at Oliver whose eyes seem locked on Laurie’s face, swimming with emotion while the rest of his face is frozen, empty. 

There’s a soft click when Laurie opens the watch, and he sees the writing immediately but doesn’t let his eyes read it just yet, his throat tight and tears stinging but not falling from his eyes.

This is it then. The end. Oliver is saying goodbye. 

Laurie takes a rattling breath and let’s his gaze flicker to the words carved into the lid. 

‘With great admiration, in deep devotion’

The breath leaves him in gasp and he stares at the words, feeling them seep into him, letter by letter until they’ve sunken so deep that they’re carved into his soul.

“I love you, Theodore Laurence.”

Laurie’s gaze shoots up. Tears shimmer in Oliver’s eyes. Laurie doesn’t remember ever seeing Oliver cry before.

“I love you with all my heart and if the world were different or I was a different man I would wish nothing more than to spend the rest of my life with you.”

The watch burns in Laurie’s hand and still, he closes the lid and presses it against his palm, unable to look at Oliver or to form words in reply.

Laurie scrambles to his feet, suddenly desperate to leave the room and put as much distance between himself and the man who had just confessed his love for him, the same man who would step outside that door and marry someone else only a few hours later. 

“Laurie.” Oliver stands too, watching him run about the room and put on his clothes. Laurie tries not to look up, not to see his face because he knows what he would find there, the heartbreak, the same one that is currently choking him.

“Laurie,” Oliver tries again and his voice is as broken as Laurie feels, so with his hand already on the doorknob, Laurie finds it in him to turn around one last time and runs up to Oliver, pressing a kiss to his lips, a kiss bitter with sorrow, and when he pulls away he keeps his eyes closed, so he wouldn’t see the look on Oliver’s face, would instead forever remember what he looked like when he’d said he loved him. 

Not turning back, Laurie slips out of the bedroom, closing the door behind himself and it feels final, in more ways he cares to think about. The watch is still in his pocket, his hands pressing around it so hard the patterns on the lid will leave markings on his palm.

**_1874 - December - Concord, MA - Laurie_ **

Laurie stays in his room the next day. He excuses himself from breakfast, claiming he’s unwell, and he’s relieved and ashamed that the family will blame it on the wine he’d had too much of the night before. He busies himself with a book he’d brought with him and with his opera that he’s never finished but still fiddles with from time to time.

Jo brings him food and Laurie is grateful when she doesn’t pester him for explanations but leaves him be. 

In the early afternoon, a knock on his door makes him jump. It’s a timid knock, hesitant, and Laurie expects it to be Amy or maybe even Marmee, but when he opens the door, Oliver stands there, Charlotte in front of him, her eyes and her smile big as she looks up at Laurie. 

“Miss Charlotte had heard that you were unwell and wanted to keep you company to make you feel better,” Oliver says and Laurie is confused for the longest time, Oliver clearly uncomfortable with being here.

“I made you cookies,” Charlotte says, holding out a tissue with three little cookies tucked inside.

“We just baked them and she wanted to make sure you would also get to taste them,” Oliver explains, his voice softening.

Laurie suddenly feels like the worst person on the entire planet, sure that he doesn’t deserve any of the kindness extended to him but he can’t say anything like that or close the door in their faces like he wants to.

“Please come- come in.” Unsettled, he steps aside and lets his two visitors enter his room.

They find a seat on the sofa that sits by the fireplace, all three in row, with Charlotte sitting in their midst. 

“We brought milk too.” Oliver produces a jug of warm milk and Laurie can’t help but smile at Charlotte’s excited laugh at the prospect of a mini picnic in Laurie’s room so he gets up and finds a cup and two glasses and they prepare their little meal on the coffee table.

Oliver doesn’t speak directly to him and neither does Laurie address him. It is as if Charlotte is the buffer between them, the truce, that neither one was willing to disturb at the moment. 

“Those are really good!” Laurie exclaims as he takes the first bite of his cookie and Charlotte looks pleased with herself as she’s munching on her own. 

“Did you have a tummy ache?” she enquirers, her expression thoughtful. 

Laurie feels bad to lie but can’t think of anything else to do, so he nods. “But it’s already getting so much better thanks to your excellent cookie and the milk you brought.”

“See?” she turns to her father. “I told you it would help him feel better.”

“I know you did, little one. And you were right.” Oliver ruffles through his daughter’s hair, pressing a quick kiss to her head. 

Having accomplished what she came for, Charlotte slips off the sofa, walking over to Laurie’s desk and plucking the pen off it, making her way over to the big chair by the window onto which she climbs quietly, settling in with her new toy.

Both men watch her until she’s sitting, and she seems to have completely forgotten about them. 

Laurie’s eyes flicker to Oliver.

“Thank you for coming,” he says, quietly. 

“She insisted. The minute she heard you were unwell, she wanted to do something to make you feel better.”

“I see.” Laurie’s heart sinks. So it was Charlotte then, who wanted to see him, and hadn’t it been for her, Oliver would never have set a foot into his room. 

Oliver looks like he wants to say something but he closes his mouth, seemingly deciding against it.

“I want to apologize for my behavior, Oliver. I am so ashamed about my actions and I know I can’t expect your forgiveness so I won’t ask for it.”

Oliver’s expression is guarded and sad. Laurie feels a sting in his heart knowing he is likely the reason for it.

“I should be the one asking for your forgiveness. You were right to say what you did. I have been taking liberties I should never have and been so selfish with my-” He doesn’t finish the sentence, but Laurie picks up the word anyway.

Desire. Or is it love? Laurie isn’t sure whether or not to hope for the latter. 

“Why did you reject me last night?” he asks, surprising himself. But the sting of rejection had started last night and only festered in the morning. 

Something dark in Laurie craves for Oliver to acknowledge the reason Laurie had made up in his head, just to be sure that Oliver still felt like he had all these years ago, the morning of his wedding. To know that in his misery, Laurie at least isn’t alone. 

He hates himself for wishing the same misery on Oliver but he can’t help it.

“You were drunk,” Oliver returns bluntly. “And set to hurt me.”

The words are a slap in the face and Laurie colors and lets his gaze drop.

“You wanted to hurt me,” Oliver continues, his voice lower, and kinder now. “Because you are hurting. Because I’m hurting you. And I can hardly fault you for it.”

Laurie meets Oliver’s eyes and finds the misery he was looking for, suddenly feeling sick to his stomach, wishing it away the instant he realizes that they’re just the same. 

“What are we doing, Oliver?” Laurie whispers.

Back then, Laurie had never dared to ask him for more. For an after. The thought had never occurred to him, the future seemingly having been mapped out for them. For their separate lives. 

This is the first time he takes the step onto the wobbly footbridge, hesitant, but craving to be able to cross over to him.

“Laurie - I can’t.” Oliver pulls back, not just physically; Laurie feels the bridge under his feet shake so much he stumbles back. 

He catches Oliver’s gaze and to his surprise, Laurie finds genuine fear there.

Which is why, as much as it hurts him, Laurie nods and forces a smile. “I understand.”

Oliver’s gaze lingers on him though, as if he’s searching for that understanding or even forgiveness. 

Laurie doesn’t know what face to make to convince Oliver but whatever he did, Oliver seems to have found his answer as he stands.

“Will we see you at the dinner table later?” he asks, suddenly polite, and that stings even more.

Laurie shakes his head. 

Oliver hesitates as if he’s searching for the words to convince Laurie to get over his spell of anger and pain and join Oliver in pretending everything is alright, but then he says nothing and Laurie has seldom felt so distanced from him. 

More even, Laurie knows that he now had left Oliver behind, being the one who had drawn the line in the sand the night before and refusing to walk back over it. 

“Did I do good, papa?” Charlotte asks sleepily as she is scooped up in Oliver’s arms, her eyes drooping, ready for her afternoon nap.

“Yes, little one. You did very well.” 

Laurie watches Oliver hug her close and kiss her head tenderly, something seizing in his chest as they leave his room.

**_1874 - December - Concord, MA - Jo_ **

Lunch two days after the party is a quiet affair. The younger children are put down to sleep already and only Daisy is reading with Hannah in the other room. With Fred still gone and John working through the day, their little group is just the same as it will be the following day for Marmee’s Christmas wish and Jo worries about it, if today is anything to go by. She can’t find a way to dispel the mood they’re all in.

Conversation dies as soon as it starts, as if there’s a layer of unease lying over them all. Jo watches her family and sees that they all feel it, one way or the other. 

Meg, in her efforts to engage everyone in idle conversation. Amy, in her gaze dancing between everyone as if she would know what to do if she didn’t miss anything. Oliver, who wears a stony face and avoids everybody’s gaze. And Laurie, who doesn’t eat, just picks at his food like a petulant child. Jo looks over to her mother and sees that she feels it too. 

Jo feels helpless. This isn’t what she’d hoped for, bringing them all together but she can’t think of something to say or do to change it.

Marmee had been asking Oliver questions about dinner twice already, with Oliver avoiding to answer, when he clears his throat suddenly and sits up straight. “I won’t be joining you for dinner today,” he declares, his tone blank and Jo notices his eyes flicker to Laurie as if it’s an unwanted reflex. “Because I will meet Miss Elanor Humphrey for tea.”

Jo’s gaze flies to Laurie instantly, who pales, one hand vanishing under the table and Jo watches him grip his knee, knuckles going white.

“Jessamine’s sister?” Meg asks, just as Amy pipes up “Oh, I went to school with her, I didn’t like her very much then.”

“Please don’t talk ill about her, Amy,” Oliver shoots at her and chatter rises over the table, Meg, Amy, and Oliver talking over each other. 

“I will meet her for tea and see if she’s interested in entering a marriage with a man already divorced and with two children to care for,” Oliver’s voice rises over them, almost angry now, and he takes a breath to continue speaking when Marmee stops him. 

“You will not meet with that girl,” she says, her voice low but clear, and the table freezes, their chatter dying in an instant. 

Jo swallows against a dry throat. She had never heard her mother speak out against her children’s wishes like that. 

“Mother?” Oliver asks, prompting her to explain herself, his face looking as shocked as Jo feels.

“You will not meet with that girl or any other girl in order to look for a wife.”

Panic rises in the back of Jo’s throat. She glances over to Amy, who has her eyes wide and when Jo meets her glance, she reaches for her sister’s hand, holding on tight. 

“I am sorry, Oliver,” Marmie says, her voice shaking. “I will no longer sit by and watch you do this to yourself.”

Jo’s eyes flicker to Oliver, who is now ashen with dots of color on his cheeks.

“I have lost so many good years with you, hiding away in Europe, hiding from me and from your father and I suspect from yourself.” Marmee stifles a sob.

Jo’s heart is beating so loud inside her chest, she’s sure everyone is able to hear it in the silence of the room.

“I will no longer look away, my wonderful, wonderful son. I see you, Oliver.” She swallows, visibly shaken. “Do you hear me? I see you.”

Tears burn now in Jo’s throat and Amy squeezes her hand so hard she is sure she’s going to bruise from it. A tear rolls down her mother’s cheek and Jo is unable to comprehend what is happening. 

“I see you, Oliver, and I couldn’t love you more or be more proud of the man you have become and I know your father would say the same if he was still with us.”

Oliver’s hands are shaking where they rest on the table and he isn’t hiding the tears swimming in his eyes. 

“This conversation is probably best to be had between the two of you.” Laurie stands up, his eyes downcast. Meg rises right after him, utter shock and confusion on her face.

“No,” Marmee says, her voice firm. “I need you all to hear this. You, too, Laurie. Please sit back down.”

Both Meg and Laurie do as they’re told. Oliver hasn’t moved at all, his tearful gaze glued to his mother, his jaw pressed tightly together. 

Marmee looks around the table, catching the eyes of all her children, even waiting long enough until Laurie meets her gaze. 

“I have failed you and for that I am sorry. I have allowed secrets to fester in this family. As a mother, it is my duty to make sure you are loved and happy. That is all I need to do. And I haven’t done it as much as I should have.”

“Marmee,” Amy chimes in, wanting to protest. 

“Let me speak, my dear Amy,” she says with a soft smile, reaching over to place a hand atop her youngest. 

“The greatest joy a mother can have is to see their children flourish and grow. We all are given this one life only. To find our path and to do our part and be who we are. But it’s such a short life. Over in a blink of an eye. So I must insist that you’ll do everything in your power to spend your lives the way your heart desires. And to be happy. I insist.”

Her gaze lands on each of her children, one by one.

“Jo, if you’re happy writing and teaching and don’t ever want to get married then please promise me to not let anyone convince you otherwise!”

“Amy, if you want to paint, I’m happy to look after little Olivia while you have your lessons. And Meg, my dear Meg, I know you’ve sacrificed so many of your dreams for your family. Please know that I am here to help you achieve anything you ever wanted.”

Meg sniffs, reaching for the hand of her mother to squeeze it. 

“And Laurie.”

Jo feels Laurie tense instantly next to her and she reaches out to him, grabbing his hand under the table, closing the connection to the people sitting on either side of her.

“My dear, dear Laurie. You have been part of this family the minute you’ve helped my daughter through that door. And I promise you, that will never change.”

Laurie pulls in a sharp breath, fighting with his emotions, and then he nods, no words coming out of his mouth. 

“And Oliver,” Marmee’s eyes fall back on her son. “I love the father you have become, now I can not wait to meet the man that I know is hidden inside you. Please, I implore you, look into your heart and ask yourself if you really want to get married to that woman. And only if I know that your heart tells you to do so, I will support your decision.”

Oliver takes a deep, shaking breath and Jo wants to reach out to him too, wants to connect to him to show him that everything Marmee had said is true for her also. 

“Yes, mother.” He says, his voice thin. “Please excuse me.” He stands abruptly, stalking out of the room and only when his footfalls fade down the hallway does the room fill with air again. 

Laurie is shaking next to Jo, his whole body bouncing, his eyes trained to the door Oliver just left through.

“Please, let me,” Jo whispers to him, when Laurie moves to stand up, undoubtedly to follow after Oliver. Only then does Laurie face her and Jo finds his eyes storm with emotion. He too, as is everyone else in the room, is close to tears. 

“Please, Laurie?”

He nods and Jo stands herself, walking over to her mother and pressing a kiss to her head before leaving the room to find her brother.


	10. And I'll watch you reconsider

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as writing is cathartic, reading is too. For everyone finding the time to enjoy this now, thank you. For everyone who can't, that's okay, too. Sending you all so much love.

**_1870 - January - Concord, MA - Jo_ **

The day of the wedding, Jo wakes with a knot in her stomach and it doesn’t go away when she washes and puts on her dress, nor when she helps Marmee and Hannah with breakfast. 

It doesn’t help that Marmee is subdued which is unusual for her but Jo chalks it up to nervousness and tries not to pay it too much attention. 

“Could you please wake up Oliver?” Marmee asks her and Jo makes her way up the stairs, so deeply in her thoughts that she runs into someone and jumps back when she hits her chin on that someone’s shoulder and looks up to find Laurie in front of her. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, steadying her. He looks tired and his eyes are hollow and underlined with dark circles.

“Laurie, are you joining us for breakfast?” she asks him, wondering when he’d come in and how she was so distracted in her own thoughts that she’d missed him.

“I- no.” He shakes his head and avoids her eyes, fumbling with his hand in his pocket, something golden, like a chain, peeking out, and Jo steps back to take him in. “I’m not feeling too well and will go lie down at my grandfather’s before the wedding.”

“Oh.” She lets him pass by her and the knot in her stomach tightens.

“Laurie, are you- are you avoiding me?”

Laurie stops and turns back, frowning. “Why would I be avoiding you?”

Jo hesitates, unsure whether to speak her mind. She’d pushed that thought far away in her mind, not wanting to speak on it, fearing it would make it more real and drive a wedge between them.

“I don’t want you to avoid me because you still have feelings for me.”

His frown deepens. “What?”

“You’ve been absent ever since you’re back. And you’re avoiding me. I worry that-”

“It is not because of you, Jo,” Laurie reassures her, but his voice is off.

“Are you sure? I just don’t want you to-”

“I am sure,” he repeats, struggling to form a smile and that hurts Jo even more. 

“Teddy, I mean it.”

“Not everything is about you, Jo!” Laurie exclaims and Jo stumbles back at his harsh words, not remembering him ever raising his voice at her. 

For a long moment, both of them stare at each other, shocked.

“I’m sorry, excuse me,” Laurie finally mumbles and then he takes off and leaves her standing in the hallway, staring after him. 

**_1874 - December - Concord, MA - Jo_ **

She finds Oliver upstairs, standing over the crib of little Robert and looking over to where Charlotte is sleeping soundly in the bed by the window. 

“I can’t regret this,” Oliver whispers, his voice betraying no emotion. “I can’t regret them. I might have made many mistakes in my life but they all lead me to them. And nothing in the world could make me want to take that back.”

Jo reaches for him, leaning her face against his shoulder and curling an arm around his waist. There’s nothing she can think of saying. 

“Has everyone always known?” 

“I don’t think so,” Jo replies. “I didn’t know Marmee knew. But Amy did not and I’m sure Meg didn’t either.”

Oliver meets her eyes, his expression guarded. “But you did?”

Jo nods. “And about Laurie, too,” she admits, wanting to get everything out in the open. “He didn’t speak to me of it. But I knew.”

His eyes widen but he doesn’t say anything to that admission. 

“Father?” he asks and the fear in his voice is so apparent Jo reaches through his arm to link them both. 

“If he did, he loved you to the very end. If he didn’t, he would have loved you just as much if he had found out. Just as Marmee does.”

Oliver wipes his face. 

“What will I do now?” The question hangs in the air and Jo is scared to touch it, to push Oliver either way.

“Whatever it is, brother, please promise me one thing.” She meets his gaze, waiting patiently until she knows he’s listening. “Promise me you’ll take Marmee’s words to heart. And do what makes you happy.”

Oliver starts to protest. “The children-” 

“The children need a father who will love them deeply and truly. You’re already doing that, Oliver. You already are that father. It is time that you choose a path for yourself.”

He doesn’t respond, his brows furrowing in thought and Jo wishes she could wipe the trouble off his face like she would wipe away the tears he doesn’t allow himself to shed.

“Oliver, I must apologize,” Jo starts after silence had spread between them, her throat suddenly constricting her words.

He glances at her through red-rimmed eyes. “What for?”

“I told you to try to love a woman. When we were children and you told me you feared you might never be able to. It’s all my fault. Can you forgive the foolishness of a child?” She feels her own tears coming and she’s surprised how sudden they swell up, and she’s doing her best to push them down.

Oliver looks confused for a moment until understanding dawns on his face. 

“Oh, Jo, my dear Jo.” He moves to embrace her, kissing her forehead in a rare gesture of affection that only makes Jo give in to her sobs. 

“It wasn’t your fault,” he whispers into her hair while she shakes in his arms, her tears flowing freely now. “I did this to myself, all of it. I truly believed I could love her.”

“I’m so sorry,” Jo sobs, meaning what she’d said all those years ago but also everything Oliver has gone through, any bad word he had said or thought about himself. “I’m so sorry.”

**_1874 - December - Concord, MA - Laurie_ **

Laurie stays out of everyone’s way for the rest of the day. After what happened at lunch, he leaves the March home and busies himself away from the family, even accepts an invitation from a friend of his grandfather for dinner, so when he returns in the late hours of the evening, most have already gone to bed. 

Laurie is relieved. The day had thrown him off balance more than he cared to admit and he doesn’t know how to face any of them, too much laid bare without being named and he doesn’t know where he stands with any of them or with Oliver. 

Oliver. 

Laurie is both anxious and scared to see him. Anxious, because he watched him stagger out of the dining room, his whole world flipped upside down. He wants to make sure that he’s well, but he’s scared to find out that nothing had changed between them. 

The carriage that brought Laurie home silently vanishes in the dark and leaves him behind, and he pauses for a moment and takes in the silence that only the snow covering the ground could give. A serene silence, as if the world had stopped turning, at least for a little bit. 

Laurie turns to the house and, to his surprise, sees light coming from the stable. A faint glow, by a single light. 

He starts towards it, his heart beating a little faster. It must be past midnight, so the stable boy had gone for the day hours ago. 

“Oliver?”

Once inside, Laurie stops in his tracks as he spots him, about to open the door to one of the two horses that are kept here.

Oliver looks startled, and then his face changes as he recognizes Laurie. He’s weary now, a lost expression that Laurie wonders whether he gets to see because Oliver trusts him enough or is too tired to mask it. 

He tries a few tentative steps towards him. The stable is much warmer than the outside, heat radiating from the animals and the hay.

“Where are you going?” 

“Away. Just for tonight. Rosie is looking after the children while I’m gone. I just need to get away for a bit, clear my head. I need to-”

“Have you gone to see Miss Elanor?” 

Oliver shakes his head without looking up and relief floods Laurie more than he thought possible.

“Have you spoken to your mother?”

A nod this time.

“Then why-”

Oliver closes his eyes. “Please, Laurie. I-”

“So you’ll leave again?” Laurie’s voice breaks. “Not even the courtesy of an explanation? Just a ‘see you later’ and off you go?”

Oliver looks at him then, eyes wide. 

Laurie nods, his jaw tensing under the anger that is coursing through him. “Because it served you before, hasn’t it? Leaving is what you do.”

Sick to his stomach, with anger and disappointment and the helpless agony of standing in front of Oliver and not making a difference, Laurie turns to go.

“You left, too,” Oliver says and it’s what stops Laurie. Not his words, but the silent pain vibrating in them. 

Laurie turns back around and their gazes meet.

“You left, that morning when I gave you the watch.”

“I left because you were to be married that day.”

Oliver’s smile is sad and defeated. “I had offered you my love and received not a word in return. I was ready to run away with you that day, Laurie. One word from you and I would have stopped everything, would have left all of it behind to be with you.”

Laurie gasps, his mouth parting as if he’d been punched into his stomach. “No,” he bursts out.

Oliver takes a deep breath, blinking heavily as if to blink away tears. “I was so sure you didn’t return my feelings, not all the way. But now I see you still keep wearing the watch?”

“Not returning?” Laurie’s eyes widen as his mind is desperately trying to process Oliver’s words. Anger spikes in him, makes his hands tingle and dots dance before his eyes as if he’s going to faint. 

“No. No,” he breathes and then he looks up. “Stop this! Stop this at once! _Not returning your feelings?_ ”

He shouts the last words and charges forward, not knowing what he’s going to do until he reaches Oliver and swings his fist, hitting him across the jaw.

Oliver stumbles back, too stunned to react, but Laurie keeps going, keeps pushing and hitting Oliver with both hands, his chest and his shoulders and his sides, and Oliver tries to counter him, tries to reach for Laurie’s arms to keep them still. 

“How can you say that?” he rasps, his body trembling with anger. “How can you say these things when it was you who left me behind? When I had loved you more than I had ever loved anyone?”

He lands another hit to Oliver’s shoulder and then is pushed back by Oliver, who doesn’t seem to know if he should block Laurie’s punches. Later, Laurie will wonder if he took hit after hit because he was convinced he deserved them. 

Their quarrel is like a dance, a desperate choreography of two bodies pushing each other away only to end up back at the start, not a breath of distance between them. They stumble and fall together, only to rise back to their feet and keep going. Oliver soon has the upper hand, his broader frame pushing Laurie against a wall, both his hands finally getting a hold of Laurie’s, pinning them to his sides, rendering him immovable.

“I had loved you, Oliver,” Laurie pushes the words out of his burning chest, every syllable hitting his opponent just like his fists. “And I can’t help but love you still just the same. God knows I’ve tried to get over you.”

For a moment, only their heavy breathing fills the stable, and Oliver’s eyes flicker over Laurie’s face, his brows furrowed. Laurie is aware of nothing but Oliver’s body pressed to his, and something else besides the anger is surging through him now.

He curls his hands around where Oliver is holding him, pushing his hips forward. His mind quiets in the swirl of emotions, pushing everything to the side, finding a single focus point.

Laurie witnesses the exact moment when Oliver’s mind does the same.

Oliver breathes in sharply.

“What are you going to do now?” Laurie whispers, his eyes flickering between Oliver’s eyes and his lips, never settling on one spot.

“I don’t know,” Oliver replies and Laurie almost smiles at the confusion on his face.

“I meant, what are you going to do right now?”

Something breaks between them or locks back into place, and Oliver pushes forward and presses his lips to Laurie’s in a searing kiss, a kiss Laurie had been expecting and he answers in kind, opening his mouth to grant Oliver entrance. 

The anger hasn’t subsided but instead morphed into desire and Laurie pulls at Oliver now, pulls the shirt out of his pants just so his palms can graze the hot skin of Oliver’s hips and the small of his back. He feels as if the touch is more than physical, as if skin on skin is closing a connection that should never have been severed to begin with. 

Oliver makes a noise, a deep desperate moan, just before he rips open the shirt on Laurie’s chest and a moment later his lips travel down Laurie’s neck and then to his chest, pressing and sucking kisses into every inch of skin he has access to and Laurie’s head falls back and his hands find a home in Oliver’s hair.

“Oliver,” he moans his name. “Oliver, Oliver, Oliver.”

Oliver comes up then, hovers a moment before him and Laurie sobs, the expression on Oliver’s face as naked as their exposed skin.

“I love you still, too, Laurie,” he whispers hoarsely, putting the words to everything that Laurie can already witness on his face.

Laurie pulls on him once more, their mouths finding each other, tongues dancing in something that goes beyond just a simple kiss, that is already halfway to sex and soon both of them reach between them, impatiently opening each other’s pants until they’re both bare.

“Fuck,” Oliver groans at the first sure touch of Laurie’s fist around his cock and then Laurie’s cock rubs against him too. 

Laurie removes his hand and instead sneaks them around Oliver’s ass, grabbing both of the thick globes and pulling him in, their crotches rocking together, creating friction that makes Laurie’s whole body tingle.

Oliver’s hands have found their way to cup Laurie’s face and they’re trading kisses, more passion than finesse, both having forgotten where they are and not holding anything back. 

“You’re so fucking beautiful like this,” Oliver gasps and tilts up Laurie’s face to make him look up and that way, coaxing a smile out of him. 

Their hips are past rhythm, past coordination, the two of them just rutting helplessly against each other, their lust ruling their bodies now, their worlds shrunken to the corner of the stable and the space their bodies inhabit.

Oliver’s hand is now cupping the back of Laurie’s head, protecting him from hitting the wall behind him, and Laurie can feel his orgasm upon him, suspecting Oliver is not far behind either. He’s watching the telltale signs on Oliver’s face, the crease between his brows, his open mouth, and it pushes him further to his climax knowing that it’s Oliver and that it’s his own body that makes Oliver look like that. 

Oliver pushes his face into the crook of Laurie’s neck and then he stills, until Laurie can feel the warm splash of semen against his belly and Oliver shiver against him. 

He guides Oliver’s face towards his, wanting to claim his mouth and Oliver complies, kissing him deeply. 

He feels Oliver’s hand on his cock as they part, Oliver leaving just enough space between them so he can meet Laurie’s eyes.

“I want to see you,” he whispers, his fist starting a devastating rhythm on Laurie’s cock, slicked by his own semen. “I want to see you peak before my very eyes, Laurie.”

Laurie moans, Oliver’s voice like its own touch on his body, curling around every nerve ending. 

It doesn’t take long until Laurie can feel the heat coil in his belly and then explode, coursing through his whole body. He tries to keep his eyes open, to not lose Oliver’s gaze but then he groans and his eyes fall shut as his own semen mixes with Oliver’s on his skin. 

“Beautiful,” Oliver says again, his voice filled with awe and joy.


End file.
